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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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Division  ^^2^  loS  0 
Section  ...LJrM.Q  £. 
Number 


DANGERS 


APOSTOLIC     AGE 


BY   THE 

RIGHT   REV.   JAMES  ^OORHOUSE,    D.D. 

Bishop  of  Manchester. 


NEW    YORK  : 
THOMAS     WHITTAKER: 
2   AND   3,    BIBLE   HOUSE. 
1891. 


%0 
MY     DEAR     WIFE, 

TO    WHOSE    LOVING     AND     UNTIRING    HELP 

I     OWE    MUCH    OF    THE    LEISURE    WHICH    I    HAVE 

EMPLOYED    IN     THEIR    COMPOSITION, 

I    DEDICATE    THESE    LECTURES. 


PREFACE. 

The  dangers  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the  ApostoHc 
age,  as  they  are  revealed  to  us  in  the  New  Testament, 
seem  to  me  to  have  been  mainly  the  three  following. 

(i)  The  danger  that  the  Church  might  be  narrowed, 
in  its  doctrine  and  practice,  by  the  determination  of  the 
Judaizing  party  within  it  to  insist  that  all  should  enter 
it  b}^  the  way  of  circumcision,  and  that  all  should  hold 
their  right  of  membership  only  on  condition  of  observ- 
ing the  whole  Law  of  Moses.  This  party  looked  upon 
the  Gospel  as  a  reformed  and  spiritualized  edition  of 
the  Law,  and  upon  the  Christian  Church  as  a  some- 
what liberalized  form  of  the  ancient  Jewish  communion. 
Had  these  pretensions  been  admitted,  every  Gentile, 
in  order  to  become  a  Christian,  must  first  practically 
have  become  a  Jew,  and  have  taken  upon  himself  all 
the  burdensom.e  obligations  of  the  Mosaic  law.  To 
such  requirements  the  Gentile  world  would  never  have 
submitted,  and  the  Church  would  have  been  strangled 
in  its  cradle. 


X  PREFACE. 

Worst  of  all,  the  spiritual  freedom  of  the  Gospel 
would  have  been  first  obscured  and  then  destroyed, 
and  the  world  would  have  lost  its  greatest  spiritual 
treasure,  before  even  it  knew  what  it  was  losing. 

To  avert  calamities  so  terrible,  St.  Paul  wrote  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  attacking  the  nascent  error 
where  it  had  gained  greatest  acceptance  and  where  it 
threatened  the  most  fatal  consequences. 

(2)  The  second  danger  by  which  the  Apostolic 
Church  was  threatened  had  a  mainly  Gentile  source. 
It  arose,  not  from  a  jealous  and  exclusive  Judaism, 
but  from  what  thought  itself  a  liberal  and  enlightened 
philosophy.  The  difficulty  was  keenly  felt  in  the 
Apostolic  age,  as  it  is  felt  by  many  still,  of  reconciling 
the  omnipotence  of  God  with  the  existence  of  moral 
and  physical  evil.  Gnostic  thinkers  were  already 
endeavouring  to  minimize  this  difficulty  by  interposing 
between  the  Divine  Source  of  life  and  the  manifesta- 
tions therein  of  pain  and  sin,  a  series  of  secondary 
beings,  to  the  later  and  less  spiritual  of  whom,  and 
not  to  God,  the  causing  of  evil  might  be  attributed. 

St.  Paul  attacked  this  error  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Colossians,  claiming  therein  for  God  His  unimpaired 
right  of  universal  sovereignty,  and  pointing  for  the 
solution  of  the  terrible  problem  of  evil  to  a  redemption 
eternally  designed,  and  as  universal  as  the  evil  which 
it  was  wrought  to  remedy. 


PREFACE. 

(3)  The  third  danger  was  one  which  was  rather 
experienced  by  the  Jewish  Christians  than  caused  by 
them.  As  the  slow  years  wore  on  without  any  visible 
return  of  the  Son  of  God  in  power  and  great  glory, 
Jewish  Christians  whose  faith  had  been  largely  coloured, 
if  not  mainly  supported,  by  the  expectation  of  such  a 
return,  began  to  be  weary  and  faint  in  their  minds. 
If  their  hope  ^ had  been  deceived  in  this  respect,  they, 
asked  themselves,  could  they  trust  it  in  any  other  ? 
Towards  the  close  of  the  seventh  decade  of  the 
Christian  era,  while  their  minds  were  in  this  state  of 
doubt  and  perplexity,  they  were  stirred  to  the  depth 
of  their  souls  by  the  approach  of  the  great  Jewish 
rebellion.  Should  they  take  no  part  in  it  ?  Should 
they  leave  their  brethren  unhelped  to  meet  the  tremen- 
dous shock  of  the  Roman  ?  This  question,  agitating 
at  any  time,  was  doubly  formidable  now,  when  their 
belief  in  Christ  and  in  His  promises  had  been  rudely 
shaken.  They  were  tempted  accordingly  to  abandon 
the  faith  and  the  very  name  of  Christian,  and  as  Jews 
pure  and  simple,  to  stand  or  fall,  live  or  die,  with  their 
brethren  after  the  flesh.  The  danger  was  of  apostasy, 
and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  written  to 
meet  it. 

I  have  written  the  three  courses  of  lectures  which 
follow,  in  the  hope  of  giving  to  those  who  have  neither 
access  to  many  books  nor  much  time  for  study,  as  vivid 


XI 1  PREFACE. 

a  picture  as  I  could  draw  of  the  great  spiritual  struggles 
which,  in  the  Apostolic  age,  arose  out  of  the  approach 
of  these  dangers.  The  subject  is  itself  of  deep  interest 
to  every  Christian  man,  and,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  its 
consideration  will  be  productive  of  two  great  advan- 
tages of  a  more  or  less  permanent  character  :  it  will 
enable  us  to  gain  a  clearer  apprehension  of  the  mean- 
ing of  those  inspired  records  which  are  our  authority 
in  matters  of  doctrine  ;  and  it  will  throw  great  and 
welcome  light  on  many  of  those  deeper  subjects  of 
speculation  which  are  of  permanent  interest  to  the 
human  mind.  May  God  be  graciously  pleased  to 
accept  this  humble  effort  to  commend  the  truth  of  His 
Holy  Word  to  the  men  of  this  generation,  and  to  make 
it,  if  it  be  fit  for  so  gracious  an  office,  a  means  of  their 
spiritual  edification. 

BisHOPScouRT,  Manchester, 
Tth  November,  1890. 


Of  the  many  books  which  I  havehaJ  occasion  to  consult  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  these  lectures,  I  set  down  here  those  which  I  think  will  be  most 
valuable  to  the  student. 

Introduction  to  the  New  Testament :  Dr.  Salmon. 

The  Life  and  Epistles  of  St.  Paul :  Conybeare  and  Howson  ;  Lewin  ; 

Archdeacon  Farrar. 
Paul,  his  Life  and  Works  :  F.  C.  Baur. 
Church  History :  F.  C.  Baur. 
PauUnisni :  O.  Pfleiderer. 
Hibbert  Lectures :  O.  Pfleiderer  ;  Professor  Reville  ;  Le  Page  Renouf ; 

Professor  Sayce. 
History  of  Christian  Theology  in  the  Apostolic  Age :  Reuss. 
St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  Galatians,  and  Romans  :  Jowett. 
History  of  Philosophy :  Ueberweg. 
The  World  as  Will  and  Idea :  Schopenhauer. 
The  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious :  Von  Hartinann. 
Prolegomena  to  Ethics :  J.  H.  Green. 
Data  of  Ethics :  Spencer. 
Types  of  Ethical  Theory:  Martineau. 
Philosophy  of  Religion :  Pfleiderer. 
Three  Essays  on  Religion :  J.  S.  Mill. 
Bampton  Lecttires  :  Bishop  Temple. 

Prolegotnena  to  the  History  of  Religions :  Professor  Reville. 
The  Religion  of  the  Se?nites  :  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith. 
St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  :  Bishop  Lightfoot ;  Prof.  Beet. 
St.  PauTs  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  :  Bishop  Lightfoot ;  Rev.  LI.  Davies. 
The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  :  Bishop  Westcott ;  Delitzsch. 
The  Jewish  Te77iple  and  the  Christian  Church  :  Rev.  Dr.  Dale. 
Introduction   to  Epistle  to  Hebrezus :  Alford ;    Professor   R.  Smith  in 

Enc.  Brit. 
References  to  places  and  persons  in  Dr.  Smith's  Bible  and  Classical 
Dictionaries,  and  in  the  9th  edition  of  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica, 
especially,  in  Eiic.  Brit.^  Mr.  Ramsay's  article  on  "  Phrygia." 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The  Galatian  Lapse i 

The  Colossian  Heresy in 

The  Hebrew  Apostasy  .         .         ,         .         .         .169 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE, 


I. 

I  HOPE  to  explain  to  you  in  these  lectures  the  connection  of 
the  life  of  the  glorified  Saviour  with  the  moral  and  religious 
regeneration  of  mankind.  Perhaps  you  would  like  me  to 
plunge  at  once  into  the  midst  of  our  subject.  I  think, 
however,  that  it  will  be  good,  both  for  you  and  me,  that  I 
should  take  a  different  course. 

Each  of  the  great  salient  truths  of  the  Christian  faith  has 
been  forced  into  form  and  clearness  by  the  pressure  of 
special  circumstances.  And  if  we  would  firmly  grasp  the 
full  meaning  and  germinant  applications  of  those  truths,  if 
we  would  see  them  with  the  eyes  of  those  who  first  caught 
sight  of  them,  cast  them  into  verbal  form,  and  made  them 
prevail,  we  must  be  content  to  approach  them  by  the  slow 
and  patient  historical  method.  If,  therefore,  you  think  that 
I  am  leading  you  to  the  heart  of  our  subject  by  a  very  round- 
about path,  I  wish  you  to  remember  that  I  have  deliberately 
chosen  this  method  as  the  only  one  likely  to  be  fruitful. 

St.  Paul  was  incomparably  the  greatest  thinker  of  the 
Primitive  Church  ;  in  my  judgment,  one  of  the  greatest 
thinkers  of  all  time.  In  saying  this  I  do  not  mean  for  a 
moment  to  suggest  any  comparison  between  the  Apostle 
and  his  Divine  Master.  Any  such  comparison  would  have 
seemed  to  him  nothing  short  of  blasphemy.  I  think,  how- 
ever, you  will  see,  as  we  proceed,  that  my  estimate  of  the 
Apostle's  spiritual  insight  and  power  is  by  no  means  ex- 
aggerated. That  which  led  him  to  put  forth  and  display 
that  power  was  a  violent  controversy  which  arose  in  the 


4  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Primitive  Church,  and  which  came  to  a  cHmax  in  Galatia 
Hence  my  selection  of  the  Galatian  lapse  as  the  subject  of 
our  meditation  in  the  present  course  of  lectures. 

Now,  in  order  that  we  may  understand  the  cause  of  that 
lapse,  and  the  occasion  of  the  Apostle's  rebuke  of  it,  it  is 
necessary  that  we  should  get  a  very  clear  idea  of  two  things, 
first,  the  character  of  those  who  fell;  and,  second,  the 
nature  of  the  influence  which  caused  their  fall.  I  shall 
consider  the  first  of  these  topics  in  the  present  lecture. 

Our  question,  then,  is  to-day.  What  was  the  character  of 
the  Galatians?  In  order  to  give  a  clear  answer  to  that 
question,  we  must  know  something  both  of  the  people  and 
the  land  which  they  inhabited.  Galatia,  we  are  told,  was  a 
country  of  Asia  Minor ;  but  to  say  no  more  than  that  is 
to  say  what  is  not  only  insufficient,  but  misleading.  For, 
equally  to  the  Christian  and  the  classical  scholar,  the  name 
Asia  Minor  calls  up  the  thought  of  that  beautiful  but  narrow 
band  of  it  which  lies  on  the  shores  of  the  ^gean,  and  looks 
forth  directly  upon  Greece.  To  the  north  of  it  is  the  Troad, 
the  scene  of  that  struggle  which  has  been  immortalized  in 
the  Iliad.  In  the  midst  of  it  lies  the  old  "  Asian  meadow  " 
of  Homer,  the  valley  and  plain  of  the  Cayster.  Fertile  and 
beautiful  exceedingly,  this  narrow  territory  glows  amidst  the 
darkness  of  Western  barbarism  with  a  light  which  time  will 
never  quench.  Its  glory  is  as  the  glory  of  Athens,  its 
mother-land ;  and  so  long  as  the  pursuit  of  truth  and  the 
worship  of  beauty  arouse  and  impel  the  soul  of  man,  the 
philosophy  of  Thales  and  Heracleitus,  the  art  of  Apelles 
and  Parrhasius,  will  give  to  Ionia  a  deathless  name. 

Nor  is  the  interest  of  the  Christian  in  that  classic  region 
one  whit  inferior  to  that  of  the  scholar.  For  at  Ephesus,  at 
Smyrna,  and  the  rest  of  the  seven  churches  it  was  St.  Paul 
who  lit  the  candlestick  of  Divine  truth,  and  St.  John  who 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  5 

fed  its  flame  with  unction  from  the  Holy  One.  And  though 
now  the  lamps  of  Asia  are  extinguished,  and  all  is  dark, 
yet  memory  clings  fondly  to  the  holy  ground,  peopling  its 
marshes  and  desolations  with  the  august  and  sacred  forms 
which  have  made  it  famous  among  the  abodes  of  early 
culture  and  religion. 

But  all  the  more  because  we  are  accustomed  to  identify 
Asia  Minor  with  this  brilliant  fringe  of  one  of  its  sea  coasts, 
is  it  misleading  to  say  only  that  Galatia  was  in  Asia  Minor. 
That  immense  country  has  a  very  peculiar  formation.  Its 
central  parts  consist  of  a  vast  tableland,  between  two  thou- 
sand feet  and  four  thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea, 
from  which  it  is  everywhere  separated  by  lofty  mountains. 
Its  vast  central  plains  are  desolate  and  treeless,  not  unlike 
many  of  those  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  Australia,  and 
like  them  affording  pasturage  for  vast  flocks  of  sheep.  They 
are  occupied  now  mainly  by  nomad  people,  though  in  past 
times  the  more  fertile  parts  of  them  were  made  to  yield 
considerable  crops  of  grain.  The  greater  part  of  this  central 
tract  is  very  badly  watered ;  and  such  streams  as  it  has  find 
no  oudet  to  the  sea,  but  form  great  lakes,  the  largest  of 
them  of  extreme  saltness,  though  many  are  fresh,  with 
bright  green  banks,  and  covered  by  water-birds. 

It  may  easily  be  conceived  that  the  climate  of  this  lofty, 
dry,  treeless  plain  is  peculiar,  presenting  great  extremes  of 
temperature,  intense  heat  in  summer,  and  an  equally  intense 
cold  in  winter.  At  all  seasons,  therefore,  travelling  in  it 
must  be  extremely  trying.  Throughout  the  greater  part  of 
the  year  the  traveller  who  has  come  from  the  hot  seaboard 
plains  is  glad  to  crouch  by  the  fire  and  wrap  himself  in  his 
warmest  robes,  while  in  the  heat  of  the  short  summer  he 
must  advance  beneath  the  fervid  blaze  of  an  eastern  sun 
and  amid  whirling  clouds  of  dust. 


6  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

It  was  in  the  north-eastern  part  of  this  plain  that  Galatia 
was  situated,  a  rude  and  uninviting  province,  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  interior.  But  its  rudeness  and  backwardness 
were  further  aggravated  by  the  difficulty  of  reaching  it. 
From  any  of  the  sunny  and  fertile  plains  of  the  south  and 
south-east  it  could  only  be  approached  by  crossing  the 
snowy  range  of  Mount  Taurus.  Four  hundred  miles  of 
steep,  lofty,  rugged,  and,  save  at  three  or  four  spots,  innpass- 
able  mountains  separated  it  from  the  wealth  and  culture  of 
the  plains.  The  most  accessible  of  its  passes,  the  famous 
"  Cilician  Gates,"  which  breaks  through  the  range  between 
mountains  rising  to  a  height  of  more  than  ten  thousand 
feet,  is  eighty  miles  in  length.  In  climbing,  either  by  it  or 
by  any  other  of  the  accustomed  routes,  the  traveller  passes 
through  some  of  the  wildest  and  grandest  scenery  in  the 
world. 

The  mountains  consist  wholly  of  limestone,  and  there- 
fore the  steep  pathways,  paved  in  ancient  times,  appear 
as  white  as  if  made  of  marble.  This  narrow,  white,  and 
broken  path  winds  everywhere  among  tremendous  preci- 
pices and  narrow  gorges  covered  thickly  with  pine  and  oak. 
In  winter,  or  at  the  colder  seasons,  the  short  streams  which 
tear  their  way  through  the  dark  forests  to  the  narrow  band 
of  sea-plain  below,  quite  fill  the  narrowest  parts  of  the 
passes,  sweep  away  the  frail  bridges,  and  put  the  life  of  the 
traveller  in  imminent  danger. 

Nor  are  perils  of  another  kind  wanting.  Crouching  in 
those  black  trackless  woods  were  the  wild  Isaurian  and 
Pisidian  robbers,  and  woe  to  the  traveller  who  should  try  to 
slip  through  their  ambush  without  the  protection  of  a  large 
company.  Thus,  to  the  barriers  set  by  nature,  man  added 
one  more  formidable ;  and,  accordingly,  few  travellers  from 
the   south  would  be  found  on  these  roads  except  at  the 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  7 

beginning  of  summer,  when  great  bands  of  shepherds  left 
the  hot  and  grassless  plains,  with  flocks  and  herds,  to  find 
pasturage  in  the  green  cool  yaiiahs,  or  hollows,  of  the  table- 
land above. 

This  short  account  of  the  Asian  tableland  and  the 
approach  to  it,  may  enable  us  to  understand  not  only  the 
rudeness  and  backwardness  of  the  central  tribes,  but  also 
the  indisposition  of  any  but  the  boldest  and  most  enthu- 
siastic to  penetrate  the  country. 

When  John  Mark  stood  below,  at  Perga,  on  the  Pamphy- 
lian  plain,  looking  up  to  the  savage  ranges  of  the  Taurus, 
dark  with  oak  and  pine  up  to  their  snowy  crowns,  and 
thought  of  the  terrors  of  the  ascent,  and  of  those  perils  by 
rivers  and  perils  by  robbers  which  St.  Paul  encountered 
there,  is  it  very  wonderful  that  his  heart  failed  him,  and 
he  left  Paul  and  his  uncle  to  prosecute  their  dangerous 
journey  alone  ? 

We  have  seen  the  effect  likely  to  be  produced  upon  the 
character  of  the  Galatians  by  the  remoteness  and  inaccessi- 
bility of  their  country.  It  now  remains  to  take  into  account 
the  effects  of  race.  No  doubt  in  the  days  of  St.  Paul  there 
would  be  a  sprinkling  of  Greeks  from  the  western  seaboard, 
of  Jewish  traders  from  the  south,  and  even  of  Roman" 
charged  with  the  necessary  duties  of  government.  But  the 
mass  of  the  population  consisted  of  two  races  :  the  Phrygian 
aborigines,  who  constituted  the  lower  class  ;  and  the  Asian 
Gauls,  who  had  conquered  them,  and  settled  in  their 
country,  very  much  as  the  Norman  conquerors  settled 
among  our  Saxon  forefathers  in  England. 

I  will  say  something  first  about  the  Phrygian  basis  of  the 
people.  All  authorities  are  agreed  that  the  Phrygian  race 
was  the  most  ancient  race  in  the  country,  their  origin  being 
lost  in  the  mists  of  prehistoric  times.     Modern  authorities, 


8  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

however,  are  disposed  to  identify  them  with  that  ancient 
Pelasgic  race  which  was  found  at  the  dawn  of  history  in  all 
parts  of  Greece,  Italy,  and  Asia  Minor;  and  to  find  the 
original  home  of  both  races  in  the  highlands  of  Armenia. 
At  one  period,  before  the  incursions  of  the  Semitic  races 
from  the  south-east,  and  of  the  Thracians  from  the  north- 
west, it  is  supposed  that  the  Phrygians  occupied  the  whole  of 
Asia  Minor.  This  conclusion  becomes  immensely  interest- 
ing in  the  light  of  the  greatest  and  most  recent  archaeological 
discovery  of  our  own  days. 

All  readers  of  the  Bible  will  remember  that  a  people 
called  the  Hittites  dwelt  in  the  days  of  Abraham  as  far 
south  as  Hebron.  It  was  from  them  that  he  purchased  the 
cave  of  Machpelah  as  a  burying-place.  At  the  time  of  the 
Israelite  invasion  of  Canaan  they  had  been  driven  north- 
w^ard.  But  it  was  against  their  serried  lines  of  chariots  that 
the  Israelites  had  to  contend  at  the  decisive  battle  of  Merom. 
In  later  days  we  find  their  soldiers  of  fortune  leading  the 
armies  of  David  and  Solomon ;  and  we  read  later  still  that 
when  the  Syrians  broke  up  in  panic  from  the  siege  of 
Samaria,  it  w^as  "  for  fear  of  the  kings  of  the  Hittites." 

Of  the  existence  of  these  people  classical  history  was 
absolutely  silent.  Accordingly,  this  fact  was  cited  by  a 
great  scholar  and  critic  now  living,  as  a  proof  of  the  in- 
accuracy of  the  sacred  history.  How  could  such  a  people 
as  the  Hittites,  it  was  urged,  had  they  ever  existed,  have  so 
utterly  dropped  out  of  sight?  The  last  word  of  secular 
history,  however,  had  not  yet  been  uttered  about  this 
ancient  people. 

The  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt  have  been  consulted,  and 
what  do  they  tell  us  ?  That  before  the  time  of  Moses,  in 
the  days  of  Egypt's  mightiest  Pharaoh,  a  treaty  was  made 
between  the  great  Rameses  and  the  king  or  grand-duke  of 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  9 

the  Hittites,  who  had  waged  fierce  wars  with  him  on  equal 
terms.  We  find  that  the  Hittite  king  had  drawn  his  armies 
and  resources,  not  only  from  the  Syrian  and  Mesopotamian 
highlands,  but  also  from  all  the  tribes  of  Asia  Minor. 

Pictures  of  these  Hittite  warriors  appear  on  the  monu- 
ments, and  they  represent  a  non-Semitic,  probably  a  Turanian 
race.  Only  a  few  years  ago  Professor  Sayce  noticed  what 
former  observers  had  failed  to  remark,  that  the  Hittite 
warriors  are  represented  as  wearing  boots  with  turned-up 
toes,  like  those  which  are  to  this  day  worn  among  the 
snowy  uplands  of  the  Taurus.  To  these  discoveries  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  of  Assyria  have  added  their  testi- 
mony. They  speak  of  a  great  Hittite  kingdom  which 
existed  and  waged  war  in  Mesopotamia  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years  before  Christ,  before  Abraham  left  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees. 

Now  who  were  these  mighty  people ;  whence  came  they, 
and  from  what  regions  of  the  earth  did  they  draw  those 
vast  resources  of  men  and  money  which  enabled  them  thus 
to  hold  the  balance  of  power  between  the  great  empires  of 
Egypt  and  Assyria.  Again  a  new  discovery  has  helped  us 
to  an  answer.  Within  the  last  few  years  inscriptions  have 
been  found  and  partly  read  in  all  parts  of  Syria  and  Asia 
Minor,  in  a  script  which  is  neither  that  of  Egypt  nor  of 
Assyria,  but  of  that  mighty  Hittite  race,  which  for  more 
than  a  thousand  years  held  supreme  dominion  in  Western 
Asia. 

Comparing  all  these  sources  of  information,  the  ablest 
experts  of  the  present  day  have  come  to  the  following 
conclusions : — 

The  Hittites  were  probably  a  Turanian  race  who  had 
their  original  home  on  the  lofty  mountain  plateau  of 
Anatolia,  east  of  the  Halys,  the  very  region  from  which 


lO  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

the  Phrygians  or  Pelasgians  came.  They  brought  with 
them  a  culture  and  a  religion  derived  originally  from 
Chaldaea,  the  mighty  mother  of  all  Cushite  and  Semitic 
civilisation.  It  was  the  Nana  of  Babylon  who  in  another 
form  became  their  great  goddess  Atargatis,  the  Ashtoreth 
of  the  Canaanites,  the  Cybele  of  the  Phrygians.  It  is  too 
early  yet  to  say  that  Hittites,  Phrygians,  and  Pelasgians 
were  one  people.  Perhaps  they  were  not,  but  only  suc- 
cessive migrations  of  kindred  races  from  the  same  Asian 
uplands.  This,  however,  is  certain,  that  they  came  from 
one  home,  had  one  religion,  and  found  the  central  scene  of 
their  empire  in  one  country,  Asia  Minor. 

Here,  then,  w^e  have  something  definite  about  that 
Phrygian  race  which  formed  the  lower  stratum  of  the 
population  of  Galatia  in  the  time  of  St.  Paul.  And  we 
find  that  the  worship  of  the  mighty  mother  at  Pessinus, 
with  its  eunuch  priests,  its  mysterious  rites,  and  wild 
orgiastic  dances,  was  nothing  else  but  a  form  of  the  sensual 
nature-worship  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  had  its  rise  in  the 
plains  of  Chaldsea,  where  the  ancestors  of  Abraham  knew 
it,  and  under  its  inspiration  worshipped  other  gods. 

But  now  I  have  said  that,  superimposed  on  this  lower 
Phrygian  layer  of  population,  there  was  another  and  a 
conquering  element,  which,  indeed,  gave  its  determining 
character  to  the  whole.  We  are  startled  by  the  sudden 
apparition  of  the  Western  Celts  in  the  very  heart  of  Asia. 
How  came  they  there ;  standing  out  alone,  amidst  the 
detritus  of  early  races,  a  kind  of  boulder  people  ?  To 
this  question  we  can  give  a  very  definite  answer,  for  the 
eastward  migration  of  these  Celts  took  place  in  the  full 
daylight  of  history. 

The  Celts  appear  to  represent  that  portion  of  the  Aryan 
race  which  occupied  the  central  and  southern  regions  of 


THE    GALATIAN    LAFSE.  II 

their  wide  territory.  Moved,  then,  either  by  the  pressure 
of  increasing  numbers,  or  by  the  resdessness  of  their  dis- 
position, great  hordes  of  them  migrated  eastward  within 
historic  times. 

It  w\as  a  side-wave  of  this  great  flood  of  people  which 
poured  over  the  Apennines,  under  Brennus,  and  submerged 
Rome,  thence  spreading  itself  out  in  weaker  waves  over 
Southern  Italy.  A  hundred  years  later,  another  horde  from 
the  same  western  hive,  swarming  eastward,  threw  itself  on 
Thrace  and  Macedonia.  It  was  a  part  of  this  body  which 
endeavoured  to  plunder  Delphi ;  but,  being  repulsed,  its 
remnants  were  headed  back  upon  the  main  body  of  the 
eastward-moving  current.  All  passage  to  the  southward 
being  thus  denied  them,  it  became  necessary  that  they 
should  either  retrace  their  steps  or  force  their  way  still 
further  eastward. 

The  beaten  tribes  seem  to  have  pursued  the  former  course, 
wandering  away,  and  being,  so  to  speak,  lost  in  space. 
Those,  how^ever,  who  had  not  joined  in  the  disastrous 
southern  raids  pressed  on,  and,  forcing  their  way  across  the 
Hellespont,  landed  in  Asia  Minor.  There,  for  many  years, 
they  fought  and  slew  and  plundered,  partly  on  their  OAvn 
account,  and  partly  as  mercenaries  of  the  petty  kings  of  the 
country,  till  at  last,  suffering  a  great  defeat  from  the  King 
of  Pergamum,  they  were  hemmed  into  the  province  where 
they  finally  settled,  and  which  was  called  after  them  Galatia, 
or  Gallo-Graecia,  Greece  of  the  Gauls. 

It  were  useless  to  follow  them  farther  in  their  tumultuous 
history.  For  our  purpose  it  is  more  to  the  point  to  observe 
that,  like  many  a  conquering  race,  while  retaining  their  own 
language  they  adopted  the  religion  and  caught  no  little  of 
the  sensuality  and  effeminacy  of  the  degenerate  people  they 
had  subdued.     Still,  however,  "  it  was  the  Celtic  blood,"  as 


12  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

a  great  critic  has  remarked,  "  which  gave  its  distinctive  colour 
to  the  Galatian  character,  and  separated  them  by  so  broad  a 
line  from  their  nearer  neighbours." 

For  our  purpose,  then,  it  becomes  important  to  ask  what, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  contemporaries  of  St.  Paul, 
were  the  special  traits  of  the  Celtic  character  ?  The  Gauls 
are  everywhere  credited  with  the  special  excellences  which 
Thierry  attributes  to  them,  "  with  a  personal  valour  which 
is  without  its  equal  among  ancient  peoples;  with  a  spirit 
frank,  impetuous,  open  to  all  impressions,  and  eminently 
intelligent."  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  said  to  have 
had  all  the  faults  which  he  acknowledges,  "  extreme 
changeableness,  an  absence  of  constancy,  a  marked  repug- 
nance to  those  ideas  of  discipline  and  order  so  powerfully 
felt  among  the  Germanic  races,  an  excessive  ostentation, 
and  a  perpetual  disunion,  the  effect  of  extreme  vanity." 

Caesar  charges  them  with  fickleness  and  excessive  love  of 
change.  So  eager  were  they,  he  says,  for  news  that  they 
would  gather  tumultuously  around  any  passing  stranger  and 
detain  him,  even  against  his  will,  till  he  had  satisfied  their 
curiosity.  In  religious  worship  he  charges  them  with  "an 
excessive  devotion  to  external  observances  ; "  and  this  ritual- 
istic bent  of  the  Celtic  mind  has  persisted  to  our  own  times. 

Only  the  other  day,  at  the  funeral  of  a  great  poet,  who, 
refused  the  prayers  of  the  Church,  torches  and  urns  and 
tawdry  decorations  were  borrowed  from  the  ritual  of  a  dead 
paganism  to  replace  the  discarded  inscription  and  cross. 
Ritualism  of  some  kind  the  Celt  must  have.  His  sensuous 
impressionable  nature  seems  to  require  it.  Truth  must  be 
externalized  and  presented  to  his  sight  before  he  seems  able 
to  grasp  it.  Even  holiness,  in  order  to  produce  its  full 
impression  on  him,  must  exhibit  itself  in  the  pallor  and  lean- 
ness, the  fasts,  mortifications,  and  solitude  of  the  ascetic, 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  1 3 

We  cannot  be  astonished,  then,  when  we  find  the  Gauls 
of  Asia  succumbing  so  easily  to  the  passionate  ritualism  of 
the  Phrygian  cultus  ;  nor  even  when  we  find  them  so  ready 
to  combine  with  it,  for  a  time,  every  new  ritualistic  worship 
which  presented  itself. 

It  is  a  striking  fact  that  each  of  their  three  capital  cities 
had  its  own  prevailing  form  of  worship.  At  Pessinus  they 
worshipped  the  Phrygian  mother  of  the  gods,  continuing 
their  devotion  to  her  service,  even  when  the  black,  ugly 
fetish,  which  was  supposed  to  have  fallen  from  heaven,  had 
been  removed  to  Rome  ;  at  Tavium  the  prevailing  worship 
was  that  of  the  Greek  Zeus  ;  while  at  Ancyra  the  new 
Emperor-worship  was  established,  and  a  temple  of  white 
marble  was  erected  to  Augustus  by  the  united  contributions 
of  Asia. 

A  people  so  fickle,  so  prone  to  change,  so  ready  to 
welcome  any  new  thing,  would  be  quite  likely  to  give  the 
apostle  of  a  new  faith,  like  St.  Paul,  a  favourable  hearing. 
But  how  came  they,  it  may  be  asked,  with  their  ritualistic 
heredity,  to  welcome  and  adopt  a  faith  so  purely  spiritual 
as  that  proclaimed  by  St.  Paul  ?  St.  Paul's  preaching  had 
other  things,  I  answer,  to  commend  it  to  them,  besides  its 
novelty. 

The  Apostle,  it  would  seem,  had  not  intended  to  stay  in 
Galatia,  but,  crossing  hastily  the  central  tableland,  to  press 
on  to  the  more  hopeful  region  of  Lydia,  with  its  great  cities. 
Midway,  however,  in  his  course  he  was  arrested  by  an 
attack  of  that  mysterious  malady  which  he  calls  his  thorn, 
or  stake,  in  the  flesh.  It  seems  quite  certain  that  this  was 
either  an  epileptic  affection,  like  that  under  which  our 
great  King  Alfred  suffered  all  his  life,  or  the  terrible 
Eastern  ophthalmia,  which,  besides  being  exquisitely  painful, 
grievously  disfigured  those  who  suffered  from  it.     In  either 


14  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

case,  it  would  not  seem  as  if  the  Apostle  was  at  this  juncture 
a  promising  missionary  to  so  vain  and  impressionable  a 
people  as  the  Gauls.  But  we  must  remember  their  ascetic 
conceptions  of  holiness.  Would  not  the  contrast  between 
the  frail  messenger  and  his  mighty  preaching  be  likely  to 
produce  a  striking  effect  upon  such  people  ? 

St.  Paul  has  been  called  by  a  modern  scholar  "  an  ugly 
little  Jew."  Beyond  doubt  the  judgment  of  many  of  his 
contemporaries  was  substantially  the  same  ;  for  at  Corinth  it 
was  the  common  reproach  of  his  enemies  that  "  his  bodily 
presence  was  weak  and  his  speech  contemptible."  He 
possessed  none  of  the  graces  either  of  person  or  of  rhetoric. 
Pale,  meagre,  and  low  of  stature,  his  very  aspect  was  an 
offence  to  the  aesthetic  Greeks.  Simple  and  direct  in 
character,  he  w^as  too  earnestly  bent  on  delivering  his 
message  to  waste  time  or  strength  on  the  mere  forms  of 
expression,  like  the  mercenary  sophists  of  Greece,  who  felt 
conscious  that  they  must  compensate  by  beauty  of  form  for 
poverty  of  matter.  His  great  thoughts,  which  shook  the 
world,  seem  to  have  rushed  forth  in  whatever  words  appeared 
at  the  moment  to  give  them  freest  course  and  clearest 
utterance. 

But  just  those  things  which  would  be  a  scandal  to  the 
Greeks  might  be  most  exactly  adapted  to  the  needs  and 
taste  of  a  rude  and  simple  people  like  the  Galatians.  Ever 
the  Celtic  race  has  demanded  before  all  things  earnestness. 
Thought  they  love,  learning  they  admire,  and  even  rhetoric ; 
but  all  with  them  is  nothing  if  not  charged  with  the  lightning 
force  of  enthusiasm.  It  was  the  earnestness  of  the  early 
Methodist  preachers  which  swayed  the  minds  and  bowed 
the  hearts  of  the  Celts  of  England,  the  Welsh  and  Cornish 
peasantry. 

And   never,   surely,   since   the   world  began   was   there 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  1 5 

a  preacher  more  earnest  and  enthusiastic  than  St.  Paul. 
Himself  he  had  long  ago  forgotten.  He  had  sunk  his  very 
being  in  the  Lord  he  loved.  So  utterly  engrossed,  indeed, 
was  he  in  the  work  of  Christ's  kingdom  that  no  other 
interest  seems  to  have  dwelt  for  a  moment  in  his  soul.  He 
passes  through  the  grandest  scenery  in  the  world  without 
even  an  allusion  to  it.  War  and  politics  might  not  exist  for 
any  notice  he  takes  of  them.  His  heart  is  with  his  Saviour ; 
his  interests  are  in  heaven ;  and  the  one  work  to  which  he 
bends  the  whole  energies  of  his  mighty  spirit  is  the  work 
of  making  men  love  Christ,  and  of  delivering  them  from 
the  slavery  of  sin. 

Conceive,  then,  this  feeble,  insignificant-looking  man, 
racked  by  pain,  and  disfigured  by  disease,  so  driven  along, 
nevertheless,  by  the  imperious  enthusiasm  within,  that  he 
cannot  be  silent,  first  opening  his  lips  among  that  rude, 
impressionable  people.  Contempt,  perhaps,  they  may  have 
felt  at  first;  but  as  the  voice  gathered  strength,  and  as 
words  came  more  freely,  now  in  orderly  sequence,  and  now 
in  lightning  flashes  of  inspiration,  uttering  thoughts  almost 
too  great  for  words,  and  ever  and  anon  broken  and  shattered 
by  the  might  of  an  emotion  which  overpowered  alike  both 
speaker  and  hearer,  think  how  that  first  impression  must 
have  been  changed,  how  they  must  have  seen  St.  Paul, 
as  a  Yorkshire  peasant  once  said  that  he  saw  Wilberforce, 
."growing  visibly  greater  as  he  went  on."  The  result  was 
astonishing.  The  orator  took  their  hearts  by  storm.  There 
was  nothing  they  would  not  have  given  him. 

He  reminds  them  in  his  letter  that  "  they  did  not  despise 
nor  loathe  the  temptation  in  his  flesh."  They  received  him, 
on  the  contrary,  as  an  angel  of  God,  as  Jesus  Christ  Himself. 
Yea,  if  that  would  have  availed  him  anything,  they  "  would 
have  plucked  out  their  very  eyes  and  have  given  them  to 


1 6  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

him."  But,  alas  !  they  were  Gauls,  with  all  the  fickleness 
of  their  race,  with  its  passionate  love  of  ritual  exaggerated  by 
Phrygian  mixture ;  and,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  lecture,  it 
only  needed  a  certain  kind  of  temptation  to  turn  their  love 
into  indifference,  their  reverence  into  insolence,  their  spiritual 
freedom  into  legal  bondage,  their  promising  beginning  into 
a  threatening  and  all  but  fatal  fall.  In  this  lecture  we  have 
dealt  with  the  Galatian  conversion ;  in  the  next  we  shall 
have  to  consider  the  Galatian  lapse ;  and  we  shall  find,  I 
think,  in  its  history  and  character  weighty  lessons  and 
impressive  warnings. 


II. 

We  have  to  ask  to-day  the  question,  what  was  the  influence 
under  the  impulse  of  which  the  Galatians  fell  ?  And  that 
brings  us  into  the  very  heart  of  a  controversy,  now,  indeed, 
in  its  unmediated  antagonism  a  thing  of  the  past,  but  still 
living  on,  and  revived  a  few  years  ago  by  Professor 
Pfleiderer,  not  in  Berlin,  where  he  is  Professor  of  Theology, 
but  in  London. 

The  theory  of  the  earlier  Tiibingen  school,  that  there 
was  a  bitter  feud  between  the  apostles  of  the  circumcision 
and  of  the  uncircumcision,  and  an  irreconcilable  opposition 
between  their  doctrines,  may  now  be  regarded,  to  use  the 
words  of  Archdeacon  Farrar,  "  as  a  religious  romance," 
founded  on  the  words  of  our  epistle,  "  before  that  certain 
came  from  James." 

I  am  far,  however,  from  thinking  that  the  controversy 
aroused  by  the  publication  of  that  romance  was  useless.  It 
brought  out  a  great  deal  that  was  interesting  about  the 
currents  of  opinion  in  the  Primitive  Church.  It  showed 
us  that  the  Church  of  the  first  century,  instead  of  enjoying 
that  purity  and  peace  which  we  fondly  attribute  to  it,  was 
even  more  distracted  by  disputes  and  slanders  than  that 
of  our  own  time ;  that  the  golden  age  is  quite  as  much  a 
dream  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church  as  in  the 
traditions  of  classical  poetry  ;  that  human  nature  has  never 
for  long  been  less  intractable  than  we  find  it ;  and  that, 
especially,  the  Apostle  Paul  was  pursued  and  persecuted 


1 8  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

by  a  Christian  sect  with  an  unscrupulous  and  mahgnant 
hatred  which  might  even  have  excited  surprise  amongst 
ourselves. 

I  see  that  Professor  Pfleiderer  still  believes,  not  only  that 
the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Luke  was  an  eirenicon  between 
the  Pauline  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mark  and  the  anti- 
Pauline  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew,  but  also  that 
when  St.  James  wrote,  "Ye  see  that  by  works  a  man  is 
justified,  and  not  by  faith  only,"  he  made  a  direct  polemical 
reference,  not  to  those  who  had  abused  St.  Paul's  doctrine, 
but  to  that  Apostle  himself.  I  can  see  no  sufficient  justifica- 
tion for  such  conclusions.  They  appear  to  me  to  be  the 
last  survivals  of  a  theory  being  rapidly  driven  out  of  the 
field  of  thought,  and  only  now  interesting  as  forcing  us  to 
contemplate  steadily  initial  differences  in  Christian  doctrine 
which  we  might  otherwise  overlook  or  treat  too  lightly. 

That  there  was  a  difference  of  mental  attitude  and  dis- 
position between  St.  Paul  and  St.  James,  and  that  this 
difference  in  the  nature  of  the  two  men  expressed  itself  in 
the  form  of  their  teaching,  and  carried  them  not  seldom 
into  sympathy  with  opposite  sides,  is,  I  believe,  all  but 
demonstrated.  That  there  is  not,  for  instance,  in  the 
whole  Epistle  of  St.  James  a  single  direct  reference 
either  to  the  incarnation,  the  atonement,  justification  by 
faith,  or  the  conflict  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  is 
a  fact  which  speaks  volumes. 

To  review  the  controversy  left  us  by  the  TUbingen  school 
would  be.  however,  an  endless  and  unprofitable  task. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  wasting  your  time  in  such  an  effort, 
I  will  endeavour  to  lay  before  you  as  concisely  as  I  can 
the  true  history  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Jewish- 
Christian  opposition  to  St.  Paul. 

It  will  be  necessary   to  begin   with  the  Apostle's   own 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  1 9 

proof  of  the  independence  of  that  preaching  which  he 
calls  "his  gospel."  It  is  certainly  startling,  when  we 
come  to  think  of  the  matter  closely,  to  be  told,  by  one 
who  never  knew  the  Lord  in  the  flesh,  that  he  neither 
received  the  truth  which  he  preached  from  man,  neither 
was  he  taught  it,  but  "  by  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ." 
What  can  the  Apostle  mean  ?  we  are  disposed  to  ask. 
Does  he  mean  that  he  knew  nothing  whatever  of  what 
the  Lord  said  and  did  while  He  was  upon  earth  ?  If  so, 
how  can  he  be  a  Christian  ?  where  can  he  have  learned 
the  spiritual  principles  of  his  Master's  teaching  ?  Surely, 
in  this  case,  he  ought  to  lay  claim  to  be  an  original 
founder,  and  not  a  mere  disciple  of  Jesus  Christ.  So 
far,  however,  is  the  Apostle  from  making  any  such  claim, 
that  there  is  not  one  of  the  twelve  of  whom  we  could 
say  as  unreservedly  as  of  St.  Paul  that  he  entirely  lost 
himself  in  the  Saviour.  He  not  only  calls  himself  the 
"  slave "  of  his  heavenly  Master,  declaring  that  he  is 
determined  to  know  nothing  among  men  but  "Jesus 
Christ  and  Him  crucified,"  but  he  looks  upon  all  his 
work  as  the  mere  outflow  of  Christ's  energy,  and  upon 
his  own  spiritual  existence  even,  as  nothing  but  an 
indwelling  of  Christ  within  his  soul. 

If,  then,  he  owes  everything  to  Christ,  and  yet  gained 
nothing  from  men,  can  he  mean  to  say  that  he  was  made 
to  live  over  again  in  vision  the  whole  earthly  career  of  his 
Master,  and  so,  as  it  were,  to  see  and  hear  for  himself  at 
first  hand?  No  shadow  of  such  a  claim  is  anywhere 
made. 

What,  then,  does  St.  Paul  mean  by  claiming  independence 
for  his  gospel  ?  I  think  we  are  compelled  to  conclude  that 
when  he  spoke  of  his  gospel  as  distinct  from  that  of  others, 
he  was  referring  to  that  special  form  of  truth  into  which  the 


20  DANGERS    OF   THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

great  spiritual  principles  and  doctrines  connected  with  his 
Master's  life  and  death  had  been  cast  in  the  course  of 
his  own  meditation  and  teaching.  Baur  himself  observes 
that  St.  Paul  must  have  been  well  acquainted  with  the 
outward  facts  of  his  Master's  earthly  career.  These  he 
might  easily  have  learnt,  if  indeed  he  needed  then  to  learn 
them,  while  staying  with  Ananias  at  Damascus  after  his 
conversion.  But  every  ordinary  Christian  knew  those 
facts.  And  to  know  them  was  to  be  a  long  way  still  from 
St.  Paul's  conception  of  his  Master's  eternal  relation  to 
mankind. 

Many  vital  questions  would  remain  still  to  be  asked. 
How  had  Christ's  death  and  resurrection  affected  the 
application  of  the  principles  of  his  teaching  ?  How  had  his 
relation  to  the  Church  been  changed  by  the  outpouring  of 
Pentecost  ?  Above  all,  how  was  a  Christian's  relation  to  the 
law  altered  by  the  death  of  Him  who  bore  its  curse  ?  Upon 
this  last  question  especially  the  Lord  had  left  no  explicit 
instructions.  He  had  said  indeed  that  His  kingdom  was 
to  be  as  wide  as  the  world.  But  then,  as  every  Jew  hoped 
that  obedience  to  the  law  would  be  equally  universal,  there 
was  nothing  in  mere  universality  to  limit  legal  obligation. 

No  doubt  Jesus  had  carried  His  spiritualizing  of  the  law 
so  far  as  to  imply  in  effect  its  abolition.  For  what  would 
become,  for  instance,  of  all  that  mass  of  legal  precepts, 
which  implied  service  at  the  temple,  if  in  the  new  era  men 
were  to  worship  the  Father  neither  at  Samaria  nor  at 
Jerusalem  ?  Or  how  could  a  law  command  universal  and 
perpetual  respect  of  any  portion  of  which  it  could  be 
truthfully  said  that  it  was  not  good  in  itself,  but  only 
*' added  because  of  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts"?  Still 
all  this  was  so  far  mere  matter  of  inference.  And  before 
men  will  surrender  the  habits,  and  especially  the  privileges, 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  21 

of  ages  and  generations,  they  demand  an  authority  more 
explicit  than  mere  inference. 

To  a  thoughtful  man,  taking  this  into  account,  the  imme- 
diate outlook  of  Christianity  at  the  period  of  St.  Paul's 
conversion  was  very  grave  indeed.  No  doubt  it  had  made 
many  converts  among  the  chosen  people.  But  then  all 
these  were  zealots  for  the  law.  They  frequented  the  temple 
services  and  sacrifices,  kept  the  Sabbaths  and  ordinances, 
observed  all  the  national  laws  and  customs,  and,  in  a  word, 
appeared  most  likely  to  their  neighbours  to  have  become 
the  better  Jews  for  having  turned  Christians.  This  appears 
all  the  more  probable  from  the  fact  that  after  the  short,  sharp 
spasm  of  persecution,  of  which  the  chief  victims  were  first 
Stephen,  and  then  after  an  interval  James,  the  Church  of 
Jerusalem  had  peace  for  twenty  years.  Christians,  indeed, 
in  Jerusalem  would  appear  to  their  neighbours,  and  probably 
to  themselves,  to  be  that  portion  of  Israel  who  believed  that 
the  long-expected  Messiah  had  come  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
had  sanctified  their  hearts  by  His  Spirit,  and  would  soon 
come  again  to  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel. 

There  w^as  nothing  in  such  a  position  as  this,  either  on 
the  one  side  to  excite  bitter  animosity  or  on  the  other  to 
impel  Christians  to  separate  themselves  from  the  law ;  and 
it  really  seemed  for  a  moment  as  if  the  mighty  enthusiasm 
of  Pentecost  might  sink  into  respectable  legalism,  as  if 
Christianity  might  be  strangled  in  its  cradle  by  the  iron 
hand  of  the  law,  as  if  it  might  sink  into  an  obscure  Jewish 
sect,  and  disappear  in  the  national  ruin,  instead  of  breaking 
its  fetters,  spreading  its  mighty  spiritual  pinions,  and  claim- 
ing the  universal  heaven  as  its  home. 

But  then,  just  at  this  crisis,  the  Divine  Lord  of  the 
Kingdom  fulfilled  His  eternal  counsel  by  the  miraculous 
capture  (to  use  a  Pauline  figure)  of  the  Great  Aposde  of  the 


2  2  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Gentiles.  To  St.  Paul,  from  that  hour,  Jesus  Christ  was 
not  the  mere  Jewish  Master  who  had  taught  and  lived  by 
the  lake  and  on  the  hills  of  Galilee,  but  the  Divine  Man 
from  heaven,  the  risen  Conqueror,  who  had  arrested  him  in 
his  career  of  persecution,  and  sent  him  to  labour  at  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  Not  then  to  those  Judaean  teachers  did 
he  go,  who  were  apparently  settling  down  into  a  received 
position  among  the  Jews ;  but  away  into  the  far  Arabian 
wilderness,  away,  I  believe,  like  Elijah,  to  the  terrible  rocks 
of  desert  Sinai  itself.  There  he  would  be  still,  away  from 
the  noise  and  babble  of  the  world.  There,  alone  with  God, 
he  would  commune  with  his  own  heart  on  the  meaning  of 
the  awful,  blessed  thing  which  had  happened  to  him.  There, 
in  those  stern  desolations,  which  spoke  so  solemnly  of  the 
law's  iron  demands,  he  would  ponder  the  relations  of  God's 
ancient  word  to  the  soul  shaking  thoughts  which  under 
Divine  inspiration  were  shaping  themselves  within  him. 
He  had  a  present  to  realize,  a  past  to  understand ;  and,  in 
the  light  of  both,  a  great  vague,  heart-troubling  future  to 
anticipate.  There  he  Hved,  thought,  and  prayed,  how  long 
we  know  not,  but  long  enough  at  least  to  enable  him  to 
gain  a  firm  spiritual  hold  of  the  truth  he  was  seeking,  the 
relation,  viz.,  of  his  risen  and  glorified  Lord  to  his  own 
heart,  to  the  word  of  God,  to  the  Christian  Church,  and  to 
the  miserable  dying  heathen  world. 

Then,  after  three  years,  he  went  to  Jerusalem  to  see 
Peter,  and  abode  with  him  fifteen  days.  A  blessed  season 
of  refreshing,  we  cannot  doubt,  for  the  solitary  and  thought- 
vexed  man.  For  not  less  by  his  sunny  Christian  sympathy 
than  by  his  affectionate  memories  of  their  common  master, 
St.  Peter  must  have  comforted  the  heart  and  enlarged  the 
knowledge  of  the  mighty  convert.  His  visit  would  seem  to 
have  been  for  the  Apostle  Paul  an  almost  private  one, 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  23 

for  other  of  the  apostles,  he  tells  us,  he  saw  none  in  the 
course  of  it,  save  James,  the  Lord's  brother.  Now  the 
Apostle  omits  a  long  and,  for  him,  somewhat  stormy  period, 
that  of  his  first  call  to  missionary  work,  and  that  of  his 
first  Gentile  mission  in  company  with  Barnabas. 

On  their  return  to  Antioch  the  apostles  are  first  confronted 
by  that  Jewish-Christian  opposition  which  was  henceforth  to 
be  the  worst  earthly  cross  which  St.  Paul  was  called  upon 
to  bear.  Certain  men  came  down  from  Judea,  who  began 
to  teach  the  Gentile  brethren  at  Antioch  that  it  was 
necessary  for  them  to  be  circumcised.  Paul  and  Barnabas 
resisted  this  claim  with  all  their  might.  From  what  we 
know  of  the  former,  we  may  be  sure  that  he  would  have 
resisted  it  to  the  end  had  he  stood  alone  in  the  Church 
and  in  the  world.  But  in  that  event  the  Christian  Church 
must  have  been  divided  into  two  camps,  which,  instead  of 
joining  their  forces  to  assail  sin  and  ignorance,  would  have 
exhausted  each  other  in  mutual  conflicts.  This  must  be 
avoided  at  all  hazards.  It  was  resolved,  therefore,  to  refer 
the  whole  question  in  dispute  to  the  apostles  and  elders  in 
Jerusalem.  There,  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  his  life, 
St.  Paul  met  the  three  great  pillars  of  the  Christian  Church, 
Peter  and  John,  and  James,  the  Lord's  brother,  two  of 
-these  four,  at  least,  being  the  greatest  prophets  and  thinkers 
of  their  time. 

Never  in  all  her  stormy  history  has  a  greater  crisis  over- 
taken the  Church.  For  the  issue  to  be  decided  was  not 
less  than  this,  whether  the  Church  of  Christ  should  remain 
a  Jewish  sect  or  become  a  world-wide  kingdom.  The  action 
of  the  Apostle  Paul  was  as  wise  as  it  was  self-efiacing.  He 
went  at  once  to  the  leaders  of  the  Christian  Church,  and 
communicated  to  them  clearly  what  that  Gospel  was  which 
he  had  been  preaching  among  the  Gentiles.     At  once  they 


24  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

accepted  it  as  the  truth,  and  gave  to  him  and  Barnabas  the 
right  hand  of  fellowship.  At  the  council  which  was  assembled 
to  consider  the  matter,  Paul  and  Barnabas,  with  admirable 
wisdom,  said  nothing  about  principles,  but  confined  them- 
selves to  giving  a  faithful  account  of  the  manner  in  which 
God  the  Holy  Ghost  had  blessed  their  preaching. 

With  good  and  pious  men  this  is  always  a  powerful  argu- 
ment. It  was  the  fait  accompli  which  silenced  those  who 
objected  that  Peter  had  eaten  with  men  uncircumcised  in  the 
house  of  Cornelius.  "  The  Holy  Ghost  fell  on  them,"  cried 
the  Apostle,  "  and  who  was  I  that  I  could  resist  God  ?  "  It 
was  substantially  the  same  argument  which  was  advanced 
now  by  Paul  and  Barnabas,  and  to  it,  we  may  suppose,  even 
more  than  to  the  Pauline  address  of  St.  Peter,  was  it  due 
that  opposition  faded  away.  The  matter  seemed  to  be 
decided  by  apostohc  authority  and  the  act  of  God.  But 
then  arose  James,  and  though  he  has  nothing  to  urge  either 
against  the  principles  of  Peter  or  the  acts  of  Paul,  he  is 
obviously  not  prepared  to  advance  as  far  as  either  in 
practice.  He  proposes  accordingly  a  compromise,  which, 
while  afifirming  the  liberty  of  the  Gentiles,  shall  leave  Jewish 
converts  to  live  as  they  had  lived  hitherto :  providing, 
moreover,  .that  for  charity's  sake,  to  avoid  giving  offence 
to  Jewish  brethren,  the  Gentiles  shall  observe  certain  re- 
strictions in  eating. 

Substantially  this  was  a  victory  for  St.  Paul.  On  the 
main  point  of  the  obligation  of  circumcision,  it  affirmed  the 
freedom  of  the  Gentiles.  And  at  first,  perhaps,  this  might 
have  seemed  all  which  was  necessary.  Time,  how^ever, 
soon  revealed  the  essential  weakness  of  this  compromise. 
In  such  a  Church,  for  instance,  as  that  at  Antioch,  where 
Jewish  and  Gentile  Christians  mixed  at  meals,  and  specially 
at  the  Agapse,  dissension  might  at  any  time  be  introduced 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  25 

by  Jewish  brethren.  They  might  urge  that  to  a  proper 
keeping  of  the  law,  separation  from  the  meals  of  the  un- 
circumcised,  even  when  those  uncircumcised  were  Christian 
brethren,  was  an  absolute  necessity.  Relaxations  might  be 
permitted,  no  doubt,  to  the  weakness  of  the  poor  Gentiles ; 
but  still,  you  know,  if  they  were  asked  privately  their  own 
opinion  of  such  Christianity,  they  must  say  that  the  less 
they  had  to  do  with  it  the  better. 

At  Jerusalem,  under  the  presidency  of  the  Lord's  own 
brother,  they  felt  themselves  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  at 
Antioch  or  Ephesus,  or  any  of  those  objectionable  places  in 
the  Gentile  outlands,  while  they  would  not  positively  say 
that  they  preferred  synagogue  to  church,  still  it  well-nigh 
came  to  that.  They  might,  indeed,  worship  with  such 
disciples,  but  as  for  eating  with  them,  that  they  would  never 
do,  and  they  looked  anxiously  for  the  time  when  the  leaders 
of  the  Church,  discovering  their  mistake,  would  revert  to  the 
holy  strictness  of  the  yet  uncorrupted  Church  of  Jerusalem. 

Meanwhile,  how  was  St.  Paul  treating  this  question  of 
allowed  Jewish  conformity  ?  More  and  more  he  spoke 
of  the  law  as  a  mere  national  code,  good  perhaps  for  the 
Jews  so  long  as  their  national  polity  subsisted,  but  binding 
on  no  man  whether  born  a  Jew  or  a  Gentile.  Regeneration 
of  heart  could  never  be  obtained  along  the  line  of  obedience 
to  law.  In  the  battle  against  sin,  law  was  nothing,  and 
circumcision  was  nothing,  but  only  faith,  which  worketh  by 
love.  A  Gentile  Christian  was  bound  to  avoid  circumcision 
and  holiday-keeping  in  order  to  show  that  he  trusted  only  in 
the  grace  of  Christ. 

What  bitter  exasperation  such  teaching  w^ould  produce 
among  Christian  Pharisees  we  can  easily  conceive.  That 
the  Gentile  Christians  in  the  name  of  Paul  should  brush 
aside  their  scruples,  and  laugh  at  their  airs  of  superiority, 


26  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

would  be  far  worse  than  if  some  irreverent  nonconformist  or 
low  churchman  should  rudely  tell  a  ritualist  nowadays  that 
his  religion  was  not  one  of  clothes  and  postures,  but  of  heart 
and  life.  Worse,  I  say,  because  the  ritualism  to  which 
these  Christian  Pharisees  clung  so  tenaciously  was  that  of 
an  alien  faith.  They  could  not  call  themselves  Mosaists, 
and  yet  they  wanted  to  live  as  Mosaists,  and  to  impose  a 
Mosaic  manner  of  life  upon  all  others,  an  inconsistency  of 
which  they  must  have  been  latently  conscious,  and  which 
must  have  made  them  all  the  more  ready  to  take  offence, 
because  it  exposed  them  to  a  crushing  answer. 

At  length  the  position  became  so  intolerable  that  they 
resolved  to  endure  it  no  longer,  but  to  make  an  end  of  it 
at  once  by  crushing  Paul,  its  chief  defender,  before  his 
admirers  at  Antioch.  Their  plot  was  astutely  conceived* 
Not  a  word  would  they  say  against  the  decree  of  the  council. 
The  Gentiles  should  attend  their  unclean  banquets  without 
a  word  of  protest  from  them.  But  then  they  would  claim 
and  publicly  exercise  those  rights  of  which,  thank  God,  the 
decree  had  not  deprived  them.  By  carefully  abstaining 
from  attendance  at  all  Gentile  meals  they  would  mortify 
the  pride  of  these  upstarts  and  teach  them  their  natural 
inferiority. 

The  time  for  this  demonstration  was  craftily  chosen. 
Peter  and  Paul  and  Barnabas  were  all  at  Antioch,  and  what 
they  openly  did  in  the  presence  of  these  great  leaders  could 
never  afterwards  be  called  in  question.  Day  by  day,  then, 
the  Jewish  plotters  passed  the  public  boards  of  the  Gentiles 
with  cold  and  reserved  demeanour,  carefully  separating 
themselves,  and  doubtless  making  as  much  stir  as  they 
could  about  their  ostentatious  ceremonialisms.  Can  you 
not  easily  realize  the  immense  effect  of  such  conduct  upon 
the  Gentile  brethren  ?     Do  as  they  would,  they  could  not 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  27 

help  respecting  a  Jew.  Was  not  the  Lord  Jesus  a  Jew? 
Was  not  Paul,  their  great  teacher,  a  Jew  ?  Was  not  the 
mother  Church  of  the  whole  Christian  world  still  Jewish  ? 
And  who  were  they,  aliens  born  out  of  due  time,  to  look  down 
upon  the  children  of  the  covenant  ?  As  then  they  saw  the 
delegates  from  Jerusalem  passing  by  the  rooms  where  they 
ate,  with  ill-repressed  disgust,  what  a  chill  must  it  have 
struck  to  the  heart  of  their  brotherly  love,  how  it  must 
have  filled  them  with  perplexed  humihation  ! 

Nor  was  this  the  worst.  Peter,  the  impressionable,  felt 
himself  in  so  false  a  position  when  these  Jewish  aristocrats 
passed  by  him  at  the  Gentile  tables,  that,  not  to  alienate  the 
circumcision,  he,  too,  passed  away  to  the  separate  meals. 
How  could  he  bear  to  meet  his  warmest  friends  and  ablest 
supporters  at  Jerusalem  with  a  cloud  on  their  faces  ?  Their 
friendship,  at  all  events,  he  must  not  lose.  Peter  thus  gone, 
Barnabas  began  to  waver.  Certainly  it  did  seem  a  privilege 
to  be  able  to  eat  with  either  Jews  or  Gentiles,  as  one  pleased. 
No  Gentile  could  go  to  the  exclusive  table.  Might  he  not 
then  even  increase  his  influence  with  the  Gentiles  by  showing 
that  that  table  was  open  to  him  as  well  as  to  Peter  ?  So,  as 
one  after  another  fell  away,  the  poor  Gentiles  felt  themselves 
thrust  into  an  inferior  place.  They  were  made  to  feel  that 
there  was  a  church  within  a  church,  and  that  if  they  would 
advance  into  the  holy  place  they  must  consent  to  be  cir- 
cumcised, and  keep  the  whole  law. 

A  cleverer  plot  was  never  laid ;  and  had  it  not  been  for 
one  man  there  can  be  Httle  doubt  that  its  success  would  have 
converted  the  Christian  Church  from  that  day  onward  into 
a  Jewish  sect,  with  the  risen  Jesus  for  its  Messiah.  The 
truth  of  God  was  put  in  danger ;  the  hope  of  the  world  w^as 
being  darkened ;  humanity  was  being  robbed  of  its  best 
treasure 


28  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

But  Paul  was  not  the  man  to  stand  by  silently  and  see 
such  a  thing  done.  So  up  he  rose  in  the  midst  of  them,  at 
some  meeting  doubtless  which  was  not  a  meal,  and  where 
all,  including  the  apostles,  were  assembled.  Not  a  word 
does  he  vouchsafe  to  the  aristocrats.  They,  wnth  their 
narrow-souled  exclusiveness,  had  acted  after  their  kind, 
and  what  they  did  mattered  only  to  a  few.  But  that  Peter, 
the  foremost  man  in  Christendom,  the  man  miraculously 
chosen  to  admit  the  Gentiles  to  the  Christian  Church,  the 
man  whose  powerful  pleading  at  the  council  had  saved  the 
Gentiles'  freedom,  that  he  should  believe  one  thing  and  do 
another  was  intolerable. 

Him  at  once,  then,  Paul  attacks.  "  You  are  a  Jew,"  he 
cries ;  "  if  then  in  times  past  you  have  eaten  freely  with  the 
Gentiles,  seeing  no  harm  in  it,  how  is  it  now  that  by  your 
example  you  are  teaching  these  Gentiles  that  they  ought  to 
live  as  Jews  ?  Do  you  think  that  if  you  create  a  higher 
sacerdotal  caste  in  the  Church  all  these  ignorant  people  will 
not  be  anxious  to  press  into  it  ?  Besides,  the  evil  is  not 
only  a  practical,  it  is  much  more  a  doctrinal  one.  If  you 
observe  these  Mosaic  restrictions  you  acknowledge  the 
binding  obligation  of  the  ceremonial  law.  Now,  I  appeal 
to  you  as  an  honest  man,  do  you  believe  that  ?  Nay,  do 
we  not  both  know  that  it  is  your  faith,  as  it  is  mine,  that  '  a 
man  is  not  justified  by  works  of  law,  but  by  the  faith  of 
Jesus  Christ '  ?  How,  then,  can  you  be  so  unfaithful  to 
your  trust  as  to  put  it  in  peril  by  your  equivocal  conduct  ? '' 

It  may  seem  little  to  us,  perhaps,  after  all  these  years, 
when  the  fierce  passions  of  the  primitive  age  have  burnt 
themselves  out,  that  St.  Paul  had  the  courage  to  stand 
forth,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  arrogant  Pharisees  to 
rebuke  their  greatest  leader  to  his  face.  But  not  the  less 
was  it  a  grand  and  heroic  deed ;  and  not  the  less  did  it 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  29 

carry  with  it  far-reaching  and  momentous  consequences. 
The  whole  Jerusalem  plot  was  blown  to  pieces.  These 
men  could  never  afterwards  creep  into  Gentile  churches 
and  allege  that  the  great  Peter  had  refused  to  eat  with 
the  uncircumcised,  while  their  audacious  champion  Paul 
had  held  his  peace.  No,  the  result  was  of  the  very 
opposite  kind.  Peter  was  too  honest  a  man  to  carry 
deception  or  unreality  one  step  further,  when  once  its 
inception  had  been  faithfully  pointed  out  to  him.  And 
therefore,  from  that  time  onward,  the  gratified  Gentiles 
could  report  that  the  attempt  to  create  a  Jewish  caste  in 
the  Church  had  indeed  once  been  made  at  Antioch  with  the 
tacit  support  of  Peter  and  Barnabas,  but  that  as  soon  as 
Paul  had  lifted  up  his  thunder-voice  of  truth  all  had  sub- 
mitted to  it,  and  once  more  the  Agapae  were  eaten  in 
common. 

AVith  the  heart  of  a  woman  when  his  dear  children  forgot 
him,  or  treated  him  unkindly,  Paul  had  the  courage  of  an 
archangel  when  the  truth  of  God  was  endangered.  Mobs 
were  nothing  to  him,  and  very  little  more  were  kings  and 
procurators ;  but  to  have  stood  forth  thus  alone,  not  only 
against  Peter,  but  also  his  own  true  yoke-fellow,  Barnabas, 
to  have  thrown  not  only  all  fear  but  all  friendship  to  the 
winds,  when  loyalty  to  the  Lord  Jesus  demanded  it,  proves 
the  Apostle  to  have  been  one  of  those  great  and  finely- 
tempered  souls,  very  rarely  fashioned  in  our  human  clay,  by 
which  God  executes  the  purposes  of  eternity. 

Many  were  the  lands  and  fortunes  through  which  the 
glorious  Apostle  was  to  pass  before  his  next  and  his  bitterest 
trial  from  the  Christian  Pharisaic  party  was  to  come  upon 
him.  At  first  that  party  seems  to  have  been  paralysed  by 
the  terrible  blow  which  St.  Paul  had  dealt  it.  For  of  their 
movements  during  the  three  years  of  the  Apostle's  Ephesian 


30  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

ministry  we  know  little  or  nothing.  At  Ephesus,  in  the 
school  of  Tyrannus,  St.  Paul  had  time  not  only  to  preach  to 
men  from  all  parts  of  Greece  and  Asia,  but  also  gradually 
and  insensibly  to  beat  out  into  perfect  form  and  clear  ex- 
pression those  views  of  human  regeneration  through  Christ 
which  he  afterwards  poured  forth  with  such  perfect  mastery 
in  the  epistles  to  Galatia  and  Rome. 

His  own  thoughts,  I  cannot  but  believe,  were  gradually 
clearing  themselves  of  every  confusing  association.  Their 
change  in  a  positive  direction  may  not  have  been  marked, 
but,  as  his  greater  epistles  show,  they  were  becoming  nega- 
tively sharper  and  less  tolerant  of  unconformable  elements. 
They  were  falling,  too,  into  systematic  shape,  finding  their 
logical  relation  to  each  other  and  the  great  thoughts  of  the 
earlier  dispensation.  Should  any  new  need  arise,  the  Apostle 
would  be  found  ready  to  strike  harder  and  straighter  than 
ever  before. 

And  soon  a  very  terrible  need  approached.  The.  Phari- 
saic Christian  party  were  changing  their  tactics.  St.  Paul  in 
person  they  dared  not  meet.  His  word  was  a  thunderbolt 
which  shattered  their  flimsy  sophisms  to  pieces  in  a  moment. 
But  none  the  less  they  hated  him,  and  were  resolved  upon 
destroying  his  influence.  He  might  be  great,  but  he  was 
not  ubiquitous,  and  the  plan  they  now  resolved  on  was 
characteristic  of  the  slow,  persistent,  deadly  hate  of  bafiled 
fanatics. 

While  he  was  making  his  fine  orations  in  the  school  of 
Tyrannus,  and  shining  like  a  star  before  the  motley  crowds 
of  Ephesus,  they  would  quietly  creep  into  the  churches 
which  he  had  left  undefended  in  Greece  and  Galatia.  No 
doubt  it  seemed  to  'them  that  he  had  broken  the  terms 
of  the  Jerusalem  compromise,  for  what  else  than  that  was 
it  to  deprive  them  practically  of  that  Jewish  privilege  of 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  3 1 

exclusiveness  which  the  compromise  had  left  untouched? 
They  would,  therefore,  on  their  side,  pay  as  little  heed  to 
its  concessions.  They  would  insist  everywhere  that  the 
Gentiles  must  be  circumcised,  and  keep  the  whole  law. 

But  how  were  they  to  gain  a  hearing  among  St.  Paul's 
own  disciples  ?  They  must  endeavour  to  discredit  his 
person  and  undermine  his  apostolic  authority.  The  Second 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  and  that  to  the  Galatians 
exhibit  fully  their  viodus  operafidt.  St.  Paul,  they  alleged, 
was  no  apostle  at  all.  He  had  never  seen  the  Lord, 
except  in  some  vision  which  he  was  fond  of  talking  about. 
So  far,  indeed,  was  he  from  being  an  apostle  that  he  got  his 
mission  only  from  the  subordinate  church  of  Antioch.  Let 
him  show  letters  testimonial,  if  he  had  any,  Hke  those  which 
they  could  themselves  produce  from  the  mother  Church  of 
Jerusalem,  and  James,  the  Lord's  own  brother.  What  was 
the  worth  of  all  Paul's  arrogant  boasting  in  the  face  of 
such  proved  defects  as  these  ?  Again,  he  was  teaching 
heresy.  He  told  men  that  they  need  not  keep  the  law. 
But  who  was  it  who  had  said  that  not  one  jot  or  tittle 
should  by  any  means  pass  away  from  the  law  till  all  were 
fulfilled  ?  Nay,  his  own  practice  condemned  him.  Who 
had  circumcised  Timothy  ?  Who  had  become  as  a  Jew  to 
Jews  that  he  might  win  Jews?  He  was  a  slippery  and 
deceitful  man,  and  as  contemptible  in  speech  and  presence 
as  he  was  heretical  and  untruthful  in  teaching.  Nay, 
worse,  did  they  not  observe  how  craftily  he  disposed  of  the 
ialms  which  he  professed  to  gather  for  the  poor  saints  at 
Jerusalem  ?  It  was  all  very  well  for  him  to  work  osten- 
tatiously for  his  own  bread,  but  let  them  inquire  what 
became  of  the  money  which  he  professed  to  forward  by 
Titus  to  Jerusalem.  Were  they  going  to  be  the  bondslaves 
of  such  a  charlatan  as  this  ?    W^ere  they  going  to  allow 


32  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

themselves  to  be  separated  by  him  from  the  holy  severity 
of  the  glorious  church  at  Jerusalem  ?  Let  them  turn 
while  yet  there  was  time,  repudiate  this  sham  apostle's 
authority,  and  rest  once  more  in  the  unity  of  Zion.  How 
vile  a  tissue  of  false  insinuations  this  was  we  know  full  well. 
But  we  can  never  know  the  anguish  of  heart  with  which 
the.  Apostle  first  heard,  after  his  flight  from  Ephesus,  that 
such  things  as  these  had  been  believed  of  him  by  his  own 
children  in  the  faith. 

The  mischief  was  bad  enough  at  Corinth.  But  in 
Galatia  everything  for  the  moment  seemed  to  be  lost. 
Nothing  had  been  easier  than  to  play  upon  the  fickleness 
and  credulity  of  these  ignorant  Gauls.  The  new  ritual 
which  the  Judaisers  brought  pleased  them  as  a  new  toy 
pleases  a  child,  and  it  promised  them,  beside,  a  new 
religion  of  forms  far  more  easy  to  observe  than  the  severe 
and  lofty  principles  of  spiritual  Christianity.  What  was  the 
Apostle  to  do  ?  He  was  in  Macedonia  when  all  this  dis- 
astrous intelligence  poured  in  upon  him.  In  his  indignation, 
then,  and  anguish  he  sat  down  and  wrote  first  the  Second 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  then  that  to  the  Galatians,  and 
then,  at  no  great  distance  of  time,  in  a  quieter  tone,  that 
systematic  expansion  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  which 
he  sent  to  Rome. 

So,  the  Church  won  some  of  her  greatest  treasures  out  of 
the  envenomed  hate  of  these  despicable  Christian  Pharisees. 
St.  Paul  at  once  throws  all  compromise  to  the  winds.  He 
will  keep  no  terms  with  such  men.  They  have  accused 
him  of  vacillating  statements.  He  will  put  it  out  of  their 
power,  at  any  rate,  to  make  that  statement  again.  His 
words  shall  be  such  as  no  human  being  can  mistake. 
Indeed,  the  crisis  was  of  such  a  kind  as  to  make  the  very 
plainest  speech  a  simple  necessity.     The  issue  raised  was 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  33 

one  of  life  or  death,  of  gospel  or  no  gospel,  of  freedom  or 
bondage,  of  salvation  or  destruction.  Not  only  those  poor 
wavering  Gauls,  but  the  whole  Church,  yea,  the  whole 
human  race,  was  interested  in  the  result.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  cause  of  humanity  had  been  committed  by  the 
fiat  of  Providence  to  the  Apostle's  single  arm,  and  by  God's 
help  he  would  not  be  wanting.  Drawing  then  the  sword, 
and  throwing  away  the  scabbard,  he  rushes  to  the  front 
of  battle,  determined  that  he  will  not  spare. 

"  I  marvel,"  he  cries  to  the  foolish  Gauls,  "  that  ye  are 
so  soon  moved  away  from  Him  that  called  you  to  another 
gospel."  "Oh,  stupid  Galatians,"  slaves  of  your  senses, 
who  can  believe  nothing  you  do  not  see,  did  I  not  paint  up 
Jesus  crucified  before  your  eyes,  in  lineaments  so  large,  in 
colours  so  vivid,  that  you  could  make  no  mistake  ?  Who, 
then,  hath  bewitched  you  with  his  evil  eye  ?  How  is  it  that 
you  are  turning  from  the  spirit  to  the  flesh,  from  freedom  to 
bondage,  from  Sarah  to  Hagar  ?  How,  having  once  known 
God,  are  ye  turning  again  to  the  beggarly  elements  to  which 
ye  desire  to  become  bondslaves  ?  Law  and  circumcision, 
weeks  and  months  and  years,  fasts,  sacrifices,  festivals,  and 
sabbaths,  I  tell  you  they  are  all  nought.  "  Neither  cir- 
cumcision is  anything,  nor  uncircumcision,  but  a  new 
creature."  Will  you  tell  me  that  surely  you  are  no  worse 
for  circumcision,  even  if  you  be  no  better  ?  I  deny  it.  I 
will  not  suffer  you  to  be  circumcised.  "  If  you  be  circum- 
cised, you  are  debtors  to  do  the  whole  law."  "  If  you  are 
circumcised,  Christ  shall  profit  you  nothing."  Is  that  clear 
enough  for  you  ?  Or  do  you  wish  me  to  be  still  more  ex- 
plicit ?  Well,  then,  I  tell  you  that  your  fine,  new  gospel  is 
no  gospel  at  all.  It  is  a  fall  from  grace.  It  is  an  apostacy. 
He  who  teaches  it  is  a  traitor  to  Christ,  and  a  foe  to  Christ's 
silly  lambs  who  have  gone  bleating  after  him.     Let  him  be 

3 


34  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

anathema.  And  lest  you  should  suppose  this  to  be  nothing 
more  than  the  utterance  of  an  uncontrollable  anger,  I  repeat 
it  solemnly  and  deliberately,  Let  him  be  anathema,  let 
him  be  cut  off  from  the  body  of  Christ. 

So  he  goes  thundering  over  their  heads,  scattering  all 
their  new-sprung  conceits  and  insolences  as  the  storm 
scatters  the  dry  leaves  of  autumn  and  drives  the  obscene 
birds  of  night  to  the  darkness  of  their  nether  caves.  As 
once  before  by  the  terror  of  his  presence,  so  now  by  the 
might  of  his  words,  St.  Paul  broke  and  scattered  the  dark 
bands  of  sacerdotal  insolence  and  tyranny,  and  planted  the 
flag  of  spiritual  freedom  where  it  has  been  floating  -ever 
since,  on  the  height  of  his  glorious  epistle. 

What  lessons  his  polemic  had  for  his  own  time  we  have 
seen ;  what  lessons  it  has  for  us  I  must  endeavour  to  explain 
in  my  next  lecture. 


III. 


When  we  have  cast  aside  what  is  of  only  temporary  interest 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  we  find  that  the  Apostle 
Paul  is  dealing  therein  with  a  question  of  permanent 
importance,  what,  namely,  can  secure  the  happiness  and 
spiritual  renewal  of  the  human  race  ?  He  deals  with  this 
question  negatively  and  positively.  Negatively  he  affirms 
that  happiness  and  regeneration  cannot  be  secured  by 
works  of  a  law ;  positively  that  they  can  be  secured  by 
the  help  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ. 

In  the  present  lecture,  I  shall  consider  the  bearing  of  his 
negative  doctrine  on  some  theories  of  our  own  time.  One 
of  those  theories  is  that  the  highest  good  can  be  secured 
for  humanity  by  a  better  distribution  of  material  possessions. 
This  is  the  favourite  theory  of  the  noisier  and  coarser  of 
the  leaders  of  European  nihilism  and  socialism.  Like  most 
incomplete  explanations  of  life,  it  is  not  without  its  truth, 
and  it  is  by  virtue  of  that  truth  that  it  lives.  Assuredly,  so 
long  as  any  large  proportion  of  the  human  race  is  without 
sufficient  food,  decent  lodging,  and  leisure  enough  to  de- 
velop its  higher  nature,  so  long  as  its  whole  time  is  taken 
up  by  mechanical  drudgery,  and  its  whole  interest  is  con- 
centrated upon  an  absorbing  anxiety  to  keep  hunger  at  bay, 
it  cannot  realize  either  happiness  or  the  highest  form  of 
human  life.  That  is  why  all  lovers  of  their  race  must  ever 
take  the  deepest  interest  in  the  labour  question ;  and  why, 


36  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

moreover,  religious  men  are  specially  called  upon  to  help 
to  settle  that  question  in  the  general  interest. 

But  when  men  go  farther  than  this  and  insist  that,  with 
a  fair  distribution  of  material  wealth,  all  the  pressing  wants 
of  humanity  will  be  satisfied,  they  not  only  take  the  part  for 
the  whole,  but  the  lesser  part  for  the  greater.  It  does  not 
follow  that  if  all  the  loaves  in  the  world  were  divided  equally 
among  all  the  eaters  men  would  be  either  better  or  happier. 
Happiness,  as  Carlyle  pointed  out,  depends  not  so  much  on 
what  a  man  has  as  on  what  he  demands.  If,  therefore,  with 
an  increasingly  equal  distribution  of  material  means  it  should 
happen  that  the  individual  desire  for  more  develops  in  an 
increasing  proportion,  the  progress  of  equal  distribution  will 
be  accompanied  in  the  majority  by  heightened  discontent 
with  their  position.  And  precisely  this  consequence  is  what 
many  able  sociologists  fear. 

Education  is  enlarging  the  expectations  of  the  people,  and 
if  they  be  led  to  believe  that  the  best  blessings  which  life 
can  give  them  are  those  purchasable  with  money,  it  is  not 
at  all  unlikely  that  those  heightened  expectations  may  lead 
to  envy  and  discontent,  the  fruitful  parents  of  misery. 

Von  Hartmann  has  pointed  out  that  though  crimes  of 
violence  are  diminishing  among  the  working  classes,  deceit, 
chicane,  and  smart  practices  show  a  suspicious  tendency  to 
increase  ;  while  every  now  and  then,  as  in  the  reign  of  the 
Paris  Commune,  when  the  muzzle  of  law  is  removed,  it  is 
found  that  there  are  people  ready  to  indulge  in  the  vilest 
and  most  sanguinary  excesses.  "So  far,"  in  his  opinion, 
"  the  all-devouring  selfishness  of  man  has  not  lessened  ;  it 
is  only  artificially  dammed  in  by  the  dikes  of  the  law  and 
of  civil  society." 

Envy,  too,  is  said  by  careful  observers  to  be  growing  in 
Europe.     Men  seek  to  possess  not  merely  enjoyment,  but 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  ^'J 

as  much  of  it  as  their  neighbours,  and  would  rather  be  a 
Httle  poorer,  if  only  thus  they  could  provide  that  nobody 
should  be  richer  than  themselves.  That  is  the  main  reason 
for  the  demand  in  Socialistic  Europe  that  the  existence  of 
private  property  in  the  form  of  capital  shall  be  arbitrarily 
forbidden.  When  no  man  can  increase  his  property,  no 
man  can  be  richer  than  his  neighbour,  and  though  under 
such  a  regime  it  is  certain  that  the  aggregate  wealth  of  the 
community  and  even  the  share  of  individuals  would  be  less, 
still  envy  would  be  gratified  by  seeing  everyone  as  poor  as 
itself 

I  do  not  doubt  that  there  are  generous  enthusiasts  who 
advocate  socialism  for  very  different  reasons.  It  pains  them 
to  see  men  suffering  hardships  which  they  do  not  share. 
Their  wealth  burns  them  like  a  corrosive,  their  comfort 
disgusts  them  like  a  crime,  so  long  as  they  see  their 
orethren  miserable  and  destitute.  And  so,  impelled  by 
this  noble  feeling,  they  wish  to  take  the  shortest  cut  to  a 
remedy,  forgetting  that  their  system  would  level  men  down 
instead  of  lifting  them  up,  and  that  equality  of  material 
means  would  be  dearly  purchased  by  the  abolition  of 
individual  independence,  the  stimulus  of  advancement, 
and  the  sanctity  of  the  home.  Let  us  give  to  these 
enthusiasts  all  the  credit  they  deserve,  but  also  let  us  not 
forget  that  theirs  is  not  the  common  case,  that,  in  general, 
envy  is  a  mightier  force  than  love  in  these  socialistic 
movements.  If  this  be  so,  then  certainly,  since  happiness 
depends  rather  on  a  man's  disposition  than  on  his  means, 
the  human  race  might  be  far  from  being  made  happier  by 
the  success  of  the  socialistic  movement. 

Yes ;  but,  urge  some,  we  are  not  so  much  depending  on 
socialism  for  our  paradise  of  the  future  as  upon  the  advance 
of  the  practical  arts,  under  the  guidance  of  science  ;  upon 


35  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

the  increase  of  the  productiveness  of  the  earth  ;  upon  the 
multipHcation  of  conveniences  in  hghting,  sanitation,  loco- 
motion, and  the  Hke ;  upon  the  invention  of  labour-saving 
machines  ;  and  upon  a  better  distribution  of  political  power 
in  the  world.  Well,  suppose  that  these  advantages  had 
increased  a  hundredfold,  and  suppose  that  a  vast  increase 
of  population  had  not  very  largely  neutralized  such  advan- 
tages, how  much  nearer  do  you  suppose  that  they  would 
have  brought  the  human  race  to  universal  happiness  ? 
Remember  that  the  race  is  but  a  multiplication  of  individuals, 
and  that  very  much  as  each  feels,  so  will  the  whole.  What 
conscious  gratification,  then,  let  me  ask  you,  do  you  daily 
feel  in  being  lighted  by  gas  rather  than  by  candles,  in 
travelling  twice  as  fast  by  rail  as  you  did  by  coach,  in 
inhabiting  a  house  of  eight  rooms  instead  of  one  of  four  ? 
You  experienced  a  momentary  satisfaction,  no  doubt,  if 
you  happened  to  live  when  first  the  change  was  made.  But 
how  quickly  that  sense  of  satisfaction  faded.  Your  advan- 
tages became  a  mere  matter  of  course  to  you,  and  you 
immediately  began  to  hope  for  something  better. 

Ask  the  rich  man  how  much  happier  he  feels  for  his 
customary  enjoyments.  He  would  feel  the  loss  of  them, 
no  doubt,  as  a  distinct  misery,  and  he  is  by  so  much  more 
the  slave  of  circumstances.  But  their  mere  possession  is 
just  as  much  a  matter  of  course  as  breathing  the  air  is. 
And  he  is  always,  besides,  longing  for  something  more. 
You  can,  in  fact,  no  more  feed  the  human  soul  on  bread 
than  you  can  the  human  body  on  a  stone.  And  the  idea, 
therefore,  of  increasing  the  general  happiness  by  any  possible 
arrangements  of  a  pecuniary  or  political  kind,  apart  from 
something  better  than  they,  is  one  of  the  most  egregious  of 
all  our  modern  illusions.  When  we  demand  better  food, 
better  lodging,   and  more  leisure  for  the  poor,  it  is  not 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  39 

because  we  think  that  these  things  in  themselves  are  suffi- 
cient to  produce  happiness,  but  because  we  beheve  that  they 
would  liberate  time  and  energy  for  the  pursuit  of  something 
better  than  themselves.  They  would  remove  hindrances, 
they  would  furnish  facilities/and  they  would  do  nothing  more. 

"  Precisely,"  exclaim  others  of  our  modern  theorists ; 
"  that  is  exactly  our  own  view.  We  do  not  expect  more 
happiness  from  a  changed  distribution  of  material  comforts, 
but  from  better  conceptions  of  the  true  conditions  of  moral 
and  social  improvement.  Give  men  a  more  accurate 
knowledge  of  what  they  should  do  and  they  will  do  it. 
Show  them  what  to  think  about  themselves  and  their 
neighbours  and  the  relations  which  bind  them  together ; 
multiply  text-books  on  these  subjects  for  the  young,  and 
larger  treatises  for  their  elders,  and  you  will  soon  see  a  great 
moral  improvement  in  the  world." 

So  they  speak.  And  this  theory  of  theirs  not  only  guides 
their  practical  action,  but  also  expresses  itself  in  the  direc- 
tion and  result  of  their  historical  studies.  They  ransack 
the  ancient  literatures  of  the  world  for  evidences  of  high 
and  noble  thought ;  and  if  they  should  anywhere  find  what 
they  seek,  or  something  even  resembling  what  they  seek, 
they  straightway  cite  it  as  a  true  measure  of  the  life  of  the 
age  and  country  of  its  origin.  Did  the  Vedic  Indians  ever 
talk  about  Dyaus  Pitar,  the  Heaven-Father :  that  is  proof 
enough  that  they  all  lived  habitually  under  the  inspiration 
of  the  loftiest  religious  intuitions.  Did  Confucius  ever  say 
that  '*  a  man  should  not  do  to  his  neighbour  what  he  would 
not  have  done  to  himself :  "  that,  again,  is  proof  enough  that 
the  Chinese  people  once  lived  on  the  same  high  level  of 
moral  feeling  as  that  to  which  true  Christians  have  attained. 
They  knew  so  much ;  ergo^  they  were  so  much.  No  con- 
clusion could,  in  fact,  be  more  untrustworthy. 


40  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

The  occasional  outbreak  in  all  lands  and  times  of  these 
high  religious  and  moral  intuitions  proves  unquestionably 
the  depth  and  richness  of  man's  speculative  faculty.  It 
shows  that  the  human  mind  is  the  natural  mirror  of  great 
thoughts,  the  inexhaustible  fountain  of  lofty  intuitions,  and 
that  no  spiritual  shipwreck,  how  disastrous  soever,  can 
quench  the  inner  light,  or  drown  the  hopes  and  aspirations 
of  our  race. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  see  and  another  to  do.  It  is  one 
thing  to  discern  a  law  and  another  to  obey  it.  It  is  one 
thing  for  a  great  sage  or  prophet  to  proclaim  a  lofty  truth ; 
it  is  another  for  his  people  to  apprehend  and  realize  it. 
"  Virtue,"  says  Schopenhauer,  "  cannot  be  taught  any  more 
than  genius.  It  would  be,  therefore,  just  as  absurd  to 
expect  that  our  moral  systems  will  produce  virtuous,  holy, 
and  noble  men,  as  that  our  aesthetics  will  produce  poets, 
painters,  and  musicians."  He  is  never  weary  of  repeating 
Seneca's  maxim,  "  Velle  non  discitur^''  willing  is  not  learnt. 
And  willing,  not  thinking,  is  the  matter  of  prime  moment 
in  action.  "  Will  is  first  and  original,"  he  cries.  "  Man 
does  not  come  into  the  world  as  a  moral  cipher,  merely  to 
get  a  knowledge  of  the  things  in  it,  and  thereupon  determine 
to  be  this  or  that."  He  comes  with  a  character,  and  though 
you  may  change  his  actions  by  increasing  his  knowledge, 
the  intentions  and  dispositions  expressed  by  those  actions 
you  will  not  change,  except  by  producing  some  effect  upon 
his  character. 

Thus  if  a  man,  tired  of  the  pleasures  of  sense,  and 
convinced  that  he  must  soon  lose  them,  changes  the  form 
of  his  life  only  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  certain  other 
pleasures  for  himself  beyond  the  grave,  though  his  acts  may 
be  different,  and  far  less  injurious  to  his  neighbours,  yet  his 
disposition  remains  what  it  was,  purely  selfish.     To  change 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  4T 

the  man  you  must  change  his  will,  or,  if  you  like  so  to 
express  it,  those  realized  tendencies  of  will  which  are  called 
character. 

Professor  Green  is  equally  emphatic  upon  this  point. 
"  As  Plato  said,"  he  observes,  "  till  the  character  is  set  in 
the  direction  of  the  ideal,  a  theory  of  the  ideal  can  be  of 
no  value  for  the  improvement  of  conduct."  "  An  ethical 
teacher,"  he  remarks,  "  will  not  take  it  for  a  reproach  to  be 
reminded  that  no  philosopher  can  supply  a  moral  dynamic." 
And  again :  "  No  one  can  convey  a  good  character  to 
another.  Everyone  must  make  his  character  for  himself. 
All  that  one  man  can  do  to  make  another  better  is  to 
remove  obstacles,  and  supply  conditions  favourable  to  the 
formation  of  a  good  character." 

Von  Hartmann  puts  this  conclusion  in  almost  brutal 
language.  "  The  reader,"  he  observes,  "  was  in  error  if  he 
sought  to  find  consolation  and  hope  in  philosophy.  .  .  . 
Philosophy  is  hard,  cold,  and  insensitive  as  a  stone.  And 
if  the  strength  of  man  is  unequal  to  the  task  of  enduring 
the  results  of  thought,  if  the  heart,  convulsed  with  woe, 
stiffens  with  horror  and  breaks  into  despair,  then  philosophy 
registers  those  facts  as  valuable  psychological  material  for 
its  investigations." 

One  can  have  little  enough  sympathy  with  such  expressions 
as  these,  but  not  the  less  is  it  necessary  to  note  the  truth 
which  they  express,  that  the  most  exact  thinking  can  no 
further  affect  conduct  than  by  setting  before  the  mind  what 
it  ought  to  do,  what  it  will  consult  its  own  highest  interest 
and  welfare  in  doing.  Whether,  however,  these  monitions 
will  be  regarded,  whether  men  will  be  any  the  better  for  the 
exact  rules  and  results  of  ethical  or  other  science,  depends 
still  on  the  state  of  the  will,  and  on  that  only. 

Some  persons  still  dispute  the  truth  of  this  conclusion  by 


42  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

trying  to  represent  human  action  as  the  result,  not  of  will, 
but  of  motives  presented  to  the  will,  meaning  by  motives 
solicitations  of  desire.  Professor  Green's  masterly  analysis 
has,  however,  effectually  disposed  of  this  subterfuge.  He 
admits,  of  course,  that  there  cannot  be  such  a  thing  as 
unmotived  willing  in  an  intelligent  doing.  But  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  motived  willing  is  not  free.  Several 
solicitations,  we  will  suppose,  present  themselves  to  a  man's 
desires,  which  tend  to  draw  him  in  different  directions. 
The  man  surveys  them.  He  considers  with  himself  whether 
the  following  of  one  or  of  another  will  yield  him  the  highest 
satisfaction  or  the  greatest  good.  So  far  he  is  identified 
with  none  of  them.  They  are  outside  him,  and  allure  him 
merely.  When,  however,  he  wills  to  adopt  one  of  them  as 
means  to  his  personal  good,  and  so  to  realize  it  in  action, 
he  has  made  that  motive  his  own,  and  he  becomes  aware  of 
the  fact  by  the  appearance  in  his  consciousness  of  a  sense 
of  personal  responsibility  for  what  he  does.  No  doubt  the 
present  choice  of  his  will  is  greatly  determined  by  similar 
past  acts  of  choice,  by  those  formed  tendencies  of  will  which 
we  mean  when  we  talk  of  character. 

But  then,  in  every  step  of  the  formation  of  such  character, 
there  was  a  similarly  free  act  of  his  will ;  so  that  character 
no  more  results  from  a  mere  mechanical  following  on  of 
necessarily  connected  events,  than  does  any  single  act  of 
free  determination. 

Once  more,  then,  we  are  driven  to  the  conclusion  that 
human  goodness,  and  by  consequence  human  happiness, 
depends  ultimately  on  the  state  of  the  will.  Whatever  there 
is  to  increase  virtue,  improve  human  nature,  and  make  life 
worthier  and  happier,  must  necessarily  achieve  its  purpose 
by  action  upon  the  will,  by  giving  to  each  man  the  power 
to  present  to  himself  and  to  realize  as  his  highest  personal 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  43 

good  those  actions  which  are  dominated  and  inspired  by 
love  of  others.  "  Nothing,"  says  Kant,  "  can  be  conceived 
in  the  world,  or  even  oat  of  it,  which  can  be  called  good 
without  qualification,  but  a  good  will;"  for  which  the 
corresponding  form  in  Professor  Green's  work  is,  "Every 
form  of  real  goodness  must  rest  on  a  will  to  be  good,  which 
had  no  object  but  its  own  fulfilment." 

Seeing,  then,  that  the  human  race  can  never  be  morally 
and  spiritually  elevated,  or  made  truly  happy,  unless  its 
individual  members  gain  the  will  to  be  good,  how,  let  us 
ask,  is  such  a  will  to  be  obtained  ?  It  is  a  very  popular 
answer  to  this  question,  by  leaving  the  human  race  to  the 
influence  of  its  own  inherent  tendency  to  progress  in  the 
right  direction. 

But  how,  we  are  disposed  to  ask,  do  you  arrive  at  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  any  such  inherent  tendency  in  our 
race  ?  Oh,  we  assume  this,  is  not  unfrequently  the  flippant 
rejoinder,  as  a  consequence  of  the  theory  of  development 
by  natural  selection.  But  now  suppose  that  we  grant  that 
theory  proved  for  the  sphere  of  physical  life,  where  every- 
thing proceeds  according  to  unchanging  law,  and  freedom 
is  impossible  :  how  does  it  follow  that  the  same  law  will 
prevail  in  that  sphere  of  which  freedom  is  the  necessary 
condition  ?  If  the  lower  animals  had  man's  power  of 
forming  abstract  conceptions,  of  adopting  one  or  another 
of  these  as  the  representation  of  its  own  highest  good,  and 
of  then  freely  realizing  that  representation  in  their  life,  is 
there  anything  more  certain  than  that  the  law  of  development 
by  natural  selection  would  cease  to  operate  ?  It  would  be 
necessarily  displaced  by  the  law  of  intelligent  and  free 
individual  selection. 

How,  then,  can  it  be  reasonable  to  pass  over  into  the 
moral  sphere,  without  more  ado,  a  law  which  only  holds 


44  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

good  on  the  condition  that  its  subjects  shall  not  be  free? 
If,  then,  this  crude  inference  be  reasonably  barred,  on  what 
other  grounds,  may  I  ask,  is  it  affirmed  that  there  is  a 
natural  tendency  in  man  to  develop  a  will  to  be  good,  to 
seek  self-satisfaction  in  those  objects  only  which  will  destroy 
the  selfish  and  develop  the  loving  impulses  within  him  ? 
We  assume  it,  it  is  sometimes  said,  because  we  observe  such 
a  progress  in  the  history  of  the  human  race.  But  how  is 
this  so,  if  we  exclude,  as  we  obviously  must,  that  particular 
area  of  human  society  in  which  it  is  alleged  that  man  has 
received  special  help  from  the  Spirit  of  Christ  ?  Through 
recent  discoveries  we  can  test  this  conclusion  by  reference 
to  the  experience  of  six  thousand  years. 

Do  we  find,  then,  among  the  races  of  men  who  have 
lived  and  flourished  during  that  long  period  outside  the 
limits  of  Christendom,  any  clear  evidence  of  a  spontaneous 
and  continuous  moral  development?  It  is  the  testimony 
of  M.  Renouf  that  "  the  sublimer  portions  of  the  Egyptian 
religion  are  not  the  comparatively  late  result  of  a  process 
of  development.  The  sublimer  portions  are  demonstrably 
ancient,  and  the  last  stage  of  the  Egyptian  religion  was 
by  far  the  grossest  and  most  corrupt."  In  like  manner 
the  process  of  Egyptian  civilization  is  one  of  continually 
deepening  degradation,  moral,  social,  and  political. 

We  obtain  the  same  result  if  we  inquire  respecting  the 
progress  of  that  civilization,  equally  ancient,  which  had  its 
origin  in  Chaldea.  Never  a  very  elevated  form  either  of 
thought  or  worship,  it  gradually  declined,  till  in  every  one 
of  its  offshoots,  whether  Assyrian,  Phrygian,  Phoenician,  or 
Carthaginian,  it  faded  away  into  degrading  sensuality  and 
national  death.  Confucius  partly  adopted  from  an  almost 
immemorial  past,  partly  himself  created,  a  very  lofty  system 
of  ethics  in  China.     And  that  system  has  retained  its  hold 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  45 

on  the  Chinese  people,  in  spite  of  the  Buddhistic  invasion. 
"The  national  conscience  of  that  country,"  says  Edkins, 
"is  much  more  Confucian  than  Buddhistic."  "  But  what," 
asks  the  same  author,  "  has  been  the  result  on  the  Chinese 
of  the  Confucian  morality  ?  "  And  he  replies,  "  It  has  not 
made  them  a  moral  people."  Where,  then,  is  the  evidence 
of  progress  in  that  immense  and  ancient  empire?  The 
Chinaman  remains  what  he  has  been  for  thousands  of  years, 
a  patient  labourer,  an  utter  materialist,  the  backward  product 
of  a  stagnant  civilization. 

What,  again,  has  been  the  history  of  Aryan  civilization  in 
India  ?  Beginning  with  the  comparatively  pure  nature- 
worship  of  the  Vedas,  and  the  vigorous  life  of  the  early 
Aryan  conquerors,  it  has  ended  in  the  superstitious  puerility 
and  national  feebleness  with  which  we  have  been  made 
familiar  in  our  Hindoo  subjects.  No  better  has  it  fared 
with  the  Buddhist  reform  of  the  ancient  Brahminism.  What 
a  descent  from  the  metaphysical  power  and  ethical  beauty 
of  Gautama's  original  teaching  to  the  useless  asceticism, 
the  base  superstitions  and  praying-machines  of  modern 
Buddhists ! 

Greece  and  Rome,  again,  presented  in  their  earlier  years 
a  popular  Hfe,  pure,  pious,  and  strong,  including  the  germs 
in  the  one  of  grand  developments  of  thought  and  art,  in 
the  other  of  law  and  government.  But  how  did  they  end  ? 
In  a  life  so  unutterably  foul  that  we  cannot  pollute  our 
lips  by  describing  it,  and  in  a  popular  degeneracy  so  hopeless 
that  nothing  could  save  it  from  destruction. 

Is  it  otherwise  with  the  history  of  that  ancient  civilization 
of  the  western  world,  which  seems  to  Professor  Reville  to 
be  as  great  a  discovery  for  modern  scholars  as  if  they  had 
been  able  to  migrate  into  a  neighbouring  planet  ?  It  was 
so  ancient  that  when  the  Spaniards  arrived  in  America,  the 


46  DANGERS   OF   THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

natives  themselves  had  lost  all  memory  of  the  ancient  cities 
and  noble  monuments  which  the  Europeans  rescued  from 
oblivion.  Even  in  decay,  however,  this  civilization  was 
imposing.  It  had  fine  roads,  irrigation  canals,  a  careful 
system  of  agriculture,  and  splendid  cities,  which  had  their 
streets  cleansed  by  day  and  lighted  by  night,  "  advantages 
in  which  none  of  the  European  capitals  rejoiced  in  the 
sixteenth  century."  And  yet,  what  had  been  the  effect  of 
this  civilization  upon  the  moral  condition  of  the  people? 
When  the  Spanish  conquerors  landed,  the  natives  of  the 
country  remembered  a  succession  of  three  empires,  and  in 
each  case  it  was  the  more  polished  people,  who,  enervated 
by  their  civilization,  had  been  vanquished  and  ruined  by 
more  savage  tribes  from  the  north.  Progress  there  was 
none.  When  civilization  reached  a  certain  stage,  it  produced 
in  each  successive  conquering  race  enervation  and  decay. 

Where,  then,  on  all  the  earth,  in  all  the  known  history  of 
man,  can  you  find  signs  of  continuous  progress,  except  in 
Christendom  ?  Will  it  be  urged,  perhaps,  that  even  in  this 
state  of  the  case  we  have  no  right  to  ascribe  the  progressive- 
ness  of  Christendom  to  its  Christianity,  knowing,  as  we  do, 
that  Christendom  has  appropriated  the  thought  and  art  of 
Greece,  the  law  and  organization  of  Rome  ?  I  answer  that 
Christendom  is  not  the  only  part  of  humanity  which  made 
that  appropriation.  Mohammedanism  was  born  six  hundred 
years  after  Christianity.  It  rapidly  appropriated  all  the 
results  of  Greek  and  Roman  civilization,  whether  in  their 
Pagan  or  Christian  form.  "  When  Europe,"  says  Dr.  Draper, 
"  was  hardly  more  enlightened  than  Cafifraria  is  now,  the 
Saracens  were  cultivating  and  even  creating  science."  They 
not  only  possessed  the  wisdom  of  Greece  and  Rome,  but 
as  Dr.  Draper  has  brilliantly  shown,  were  in  some  directions 
advancing  far  beyond  it.     If,  then,  it  is  the  inheritance  of 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  47 

classical  culture  which  has  largely  contributed  to  the  pro- 
gressive civilization  of  Christendom,  how  is  it  that  it  had  no 
such  effect  on  the  Saracens  ? 

How  is  it  that  with  all  this  treasure  of  ancient  lore,  and 
vigour  of  indigenous  thought,  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of 
the  Moslems  sank  into  the  torpor  of  arrested  development  ? 
Their  history  only  affords  another  and  a  conclusive  proof 
that  human  nature  does  not  contain  in  itself  any  sufficient 
stock  of  progressive  energy,  that  in  the  domain  of  moral 
freedom,  if  we  leave  out  of  account  that  part  of  it  in  which 
it  is  alleged  that  the  soul  of  man  has  been  reinforced  by  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  the  law  of  progressive  development  has  not 
prevailed. 

Now,  how  is  this  ?  How  is  it  that  out  of  the  sphere  of 
Christ's  influence  salvation  has  not  come  to  men  through 
the  works  of  any  law  ?  How  is  it  that  the  history  of  the 
whole  human  family  affords  one  vast  body  of  evidence  of 
the  truth  of  St.  Paul's  negative  affirmation  ?  Some,  per- 
haps, may  still  attribute  this  result  to  a  defective  ideal  aim. 
Admitting  that  the  Christian  religion  is  the  progressive 
element  in  Christendom,  they  may  still  urge  that  it  is  pro- 
gressive because  of  the  character  of  its  ideal.  They  may 
point  to  what  is  unquestionably  a  fact,  that  until  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Christian  Church  there  was  no  system  which  at 
once  set  up  the  will  to  love  as  the  highest  good  for  man, 
and  at  the  same  time  sought  to  impart  that  good  to  every 
one.  What,  for  instance,  can  be  loftier  than  the  moral 
ideal  of  the  great  masters  of  Greek  thought?  It  may, 
indeed,  be  too  narrow  in  the  range  of  its  duties,  "  tem- 
perance and  fortitude,"  as  a  great  critic  has  pointed  out, 
"  having  to  do  duty  between  them  for  the  whole  of  what 
we  understand  by  self-denial."  But  this  was  by  no  means 
its  most  serious  defect.    Not  with  the  range  of  duties  which 


48  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

it  prescribed,  but  rather  with  the  range   of  the  subjects  of 
those  duties,  have  we  most  reason  to  be  dissatisfied. 

"  In  Aristotle's  view,"  says  Professor  Green,  "  the  /?to9  -n-paK- 
TLKos,  the  life  of  rational,  self-determined  activity,  was  only 
possible  for  a  few  among  the  few,"  for  the  free  citizens  of 
a  Greek  state.  Barbarians,  slaves,  and  women,  that  is,  more 
than  nine-tenths  of  the  human  race,  he  regarded  as  simply 
beneath  the  reach  of  the  practical  life.  Most  of  them  were 
mere  chattels  and  instruments  of  the  rest.  And  hence  an 
immense  restriction  both  in  the  area  of  practical  duties  and 
the  range  of  faculties  called  into  play  for  their  realization. 
There  was  no  room  in  such  a  system  for  the  feeling  of 
universal  sympathy  and  brotherhood,  or  for  those  vast  and 
far-reaching  efforts  which  become  necessary  when  every 
human  creature  is  regarded  as  a  person,  capable  of  reaching 
the  will  to  good,  and  possessing  claims  for  help  on  all 
others.  When  such  a  duty  is  realized,  conscience  becomes 
uneasy  at  its  violation,  as  it  would  not  have  been  in  a 
Greek,  who  used  his  slave  as  his  chattel,  and  thought  of 
the  members  of  other  states  as  enemies  whom  it  was  his 
right  to  hate  and  spoil  and  destroy. 

Why  do  we  feel  nervous  now,  why  does  our  conscience 
experience  a  sense  of  discomfort,  when  we  see  aboriginal 
races  perishing  in  the  lands  which  we  have  occupied? 
Because  our  Christian  belief,  however  imperfect  it  may  be, 
has  taught  us  that  each  of  these  has  his  rights,  and  we  fear 
that  we  may  have  contributed  to  the  extinction  of  such 
races  by  ignoring  those  rights.  Now,  it  was  just  this  great 
question,  whether  every  man  has  all  the  rights  of  his  nature 
as  man,  whether  man  is  more  than  Jew,  and  spirit  more 
than  circumcision,  which  was  distinctly  raised  for  the  first 
time  in  that  great  controversy,  of  which  we  feel  the  echoes 
and  shakings  in  the  hot  broken  words  of  the  Epistle  to  the 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  49 

Galatians.  No  doubt  the  same  question  had  been  already 
raised,  and  virtually  decided,  in  our  Lord's  teaching  of  the 
Universal  Fatherhood  of  God.  It  was  not  enough,  however, 
to  state  such  a  question  implicitly.  Before  it  could  be 
finally  settled,  before  those  tribal  and  national  prejudices 
could  be  broken  down,  which  had  been  growing  and 
hardening  for  thousands  of  years,  exclusive  claims  must  be 
drawn  forth  into  clear  expression  and  negatived  by  name. 

Now,  the   question  was   clearly  raised  in   the   Galatian 
Church,  Is  it  possible  for  man,  as  man,  to  partake  of  the 
salvation  of  Christ  ?     Is  his  humanity  a  sufficient  qualifica- 
tion ;  or  must  man  become  a  Jew  before  he  can  become  a 
Christian  ?     No  man  could  have  been  fitter  than  St.  Paul, 
by  nature,   training,  and  personal  experience,   for  dealing 
with   this   immense   question.      He   had  been    a   personal 
possessor  of  each  of  the  exclusive  privileges  in  which  a  Jew 
of  that  generation  could  pride  himself.      He  was  a  Roman 
citizen,  he  was  a  member  of  the  chosen  people,  he  had 
belonged  to  the  most  exclusive  sect  of  his  religion,  and  even 
within  the  limits  of  that  sect  he  had  been  distinguished  for 
rancorous  exclusiveness.     He  knew  the  full  meaning  of  all 
which  his  enemies  claimed ;  he  had  tried  their  method  of 
rigorous    privilege  and  proud  self-sufficiency  to  the  utter- 
most, and  it  had  broken  down.     There  was  no  truth  in  it. 
There  was  no  help  in  it.     He  had  had  to  abandon  all  that 
to   find   truth   and    help    in    Christ.     Every   man   needed 
what  he  had  needed.     Every  man  could  be  saved  as  he 
had  been  saved,  not  by  merit,  but  by  grace ;  not  by  works 
of  a  law,  but  by  faith  in  Christ ;   not  by  the  suggestions 
of  a  scheme  of  thought,  but  by  the  help  of  an  Almighty 
Spirit.     And  because  this  salvation  was  designed  for  every 
man,  and  sufficient  for  every  man,  therefore   the   Apostle 
proclaimed,  in  words  which  must  have  shaken  that  proud, 


50  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

cruel,  jealous,  masterful  world  from  end  to  end :  "  There  is 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there 
is  neither  male  nor  female,"  every  clause,  you  see,  striking 
at  a  throned  and  time-established  He,  "  for  ye  are  all  one 
in  Christ  Jesus." 

Now,  I  have  no  doubt  that  by  thus  enlarging  the  range 
of  moral  duties  and  rights,  of  religious  privileges  and 
opportunities,  St.  Paul  contributed  no  little  to  that  change 
of  will  in  individuals  upon  which,  as  we  have  seen,  human 
improvement  depends.  But  if  you  had  asked  him  whether 
he  thought  the  development  of  a  better  ideal  sufficient  of 
itself  to  effect  this  change,  he  would  have  met  you  at  once 
with  an  emphatic  denial.  "  Velle  non  discitur''  he  would 
have  said  in  effect.  No  law,  no  plan,  no  system  of  thought, 
no  theoretic  scheme  of  any  kind,  can  make  man  good.  It 
can  show  him  what  he  should  be,  but  it  can  never  make 
him  such.  And  if  you  had  further  asked  him  why,  he 
would  have  replied  with  his  doctrine  of  the  weakness  and 
insufficiency  of  the  human  will.  He  was  not  himself  dis- 
satisfied with  the  law.  For  its  own  purposes  the  law  was 
"  holy  and  just  and  good."  The  misery  was  that  he  who 
knew  and  admired  it  was  not  able  to  keep  it.  It  was  weak, 
not  in  itself,  but  "  through  the  flesh." 

He  found  within  himself  two  tendencies.  The  one  he 
called  "the  flesh,"  which  lusted  to  evil ;  the  other  he  called 
"  the  mind,"  which  desired  to  obey  the  law  of  God  and  was 
not  able.  It  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to  fix  any  exact 
meaning  upon  such  terms  as  "  flesh  "  and  "  mind  "  in  this 
connexion.  St.  Paul  was  no  dry  logician.  He  grasped  at 
the  first  words  which  would  most  vividly  picture  his  thought; 
and  half  the  follies  of  dogmatism  have  arisen  from  failing  to 
recognise  that  fact.  St.  Paul  wished  to  name  those  selfish 
tendencies  within  him  which,  impatient  of  restraint,  hurried 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  5 1 

him  into  transgression,  and  he  took  the  word  "  flesh,"  that 
which  described  the  outward  part  of  his  nature,  the  seat  of 
lusts  and  passions,  as  fittest.  He  wished  again  to  describe 
those  higher  impulses  of  love  to  God  and  man  which  found 
themselves  formulated  in  God's  law,  and  so  delighted  in  it ; 
and  to  these  impulses  he  gave  the  name  "  mind,"  as  de- 
scribing that  in  his  nature  which  was  inward  and  highest. 

Now,  of  these  two  active  tendencies  so  named,  St.  Paul 
declares  that  the  lower  is  naturally  the  stronger.  The  will 
to  live  is  stronger  than  the  will  to  love.  Thus  he  cannot  do 
the  things  he  would.  He  is  driven  to  do  the  things  he  hates. 
How  can  any  law  help  him  in  such  a  strait  ?  What  is  the 
use  of  issuing  commands  to  a  man  who  cannot  do  what  he 
desires  ?  What  he  needs  is  spiritual  force  to  add  power  to 
his  will ;  to  make  the  will  to  love  triumph  over  the  will  to 
live. 

"But  how  can  such  help  be  possibly  given?"  cries  the 
naturahstic  philosopher.  Such  a  change,  going  down  to  the 
very  roots  of  being,  reversing  the  direction  of  will,  that  is 
nothing  less  than  a  re-making  of  the  man.  "  True,  most 
true,"  the  Apostle  would  have  replied.  "  This  is  what  it  is, 
and  nothing  less  than  this  is  necessary.  The  old  man  must 
die,  and  a  new  man  must  be  born  within.  The  first  Adam, 
the  nature  which  we  brought  into  the  world  with  us, 
must  be  transformed  by  the  energy  of  that  second  Adam, 
who  is  a  quickening  spirit."  That  is  why  we  need  a  risen 
and  glorified  Saviour.  We  need  Him  here  and  now,  this  day 
and  all  days.  We  need  Him  as  a  present  power,  as  a  con- 
tinuously in-dwelling  and  quickening  presence.  The  memory 
and  the  words  of  the  Divine  Teacher  of  Galilee  are  not 
enough  for  us.  We  need  a  living  Christ,  a  present  Christ, 
an  almighty  Christ,  to  reinforce  our  will  and  raise  us  day 
by  day  from  the  death  of  sin  to  the  life  of  righteousness. 


52  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

"  Therefore,"  cries  St.  Paul,  "  though  we  have  known  Christ 
after  the  flesh,  now  henceforth  know  we  Him  no  more." 
The  Christ  whom  we  know  is  the  Christ  in  the  heart,  whose 
spirit  is  ours,  whose  will  is  ours,  whose  work  is  ours,  whose 
Father  is  ours.  Is  any  man  then  tormented  and  cast  down 
by  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  is  any  man  groaning  beneath  the 
condemnation  of  the  law,  and  of  his  own  conscience,  to  him 
I  say,  "  Walk  in  the  spirit,  and  you  shall  not  fulfil  the  lusts 
of  the  flesh ;"  believe  on  the  risen  and  glorified  Redeemer, 
"  for  they  that  are  Christ's  have  crucified  the  flesh,  with  its 
affections  and  lusts."  Here  is  the  centre  and  main  content 
of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Paul. 

Before,  however,  proceeding  to  expound  it  more  fully,  and 
to  trace  its  more  important  consequences,  it  will  be  necessary 
in  my  next  lecture  to  consider  one  more,  and  the  last  possible, 
attempt,  to  cure  the  evils  of  a  weak  and  perverse  will  with- 
out faith  in  Christ. 


IV. 

We  saw  in  the  last  lecture  that  if  men  are  to  be  made 
better  and  happier,  this  must  be  effected  by  some  change 
of  will.  No  law,  no  ideal,  no  mere  scheme  of  life,  how 
excellent  soever,  can  make  men  good.  It  can  only  show 
them  what  they  ought  to  be.  Doubtless  this  is  something, 
and  may  be  much.  It  may  excite  admiration.  It  may 
stimulate  effort.  But  it  cannot,  on  the  large  scale,  insure 
success  to  such  effort.  It  has  not  done  so  in  the  past  out- 
side of  Christendom,  and  only  to  a  limited  extent  inside 
of  it. 

What  then  is  the  cause  of  this  failure  ?  St.  Paul  tells  us 
that  it  arises  from  defect  of  power  in  our  higher  nature  to 
overcome  the  selfish  impulses  of  our  lower  nature.  And 
he  adds  that  if  our  higher  nature  is  ever  to  secure  the 
victory,  this  can  only  be  accomplished  by  the  help  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ.  So  far  we  had  come  in  our  last  lecture, 
and  it  might  now  seem  to  be  time  to  go  on  to  consider 
more  largely  this  central  position  of  the  Apostle,  with  its 
principal  consequences.  At  this  point,  however,  we  are 
stopped  by  the  claims  of  what  I  may  call  the  philosophy 
of  unconscious  will,  to  solve  the  problem  before  us  in  a 
different  way.  And  before  we  can  feel  secure  in  following 
the  Apostle,  we  must  at  least  hear  what  is  to  be  said  on 
behalf  of  this  new  solution.  Strange  to  say,  it  is  sub- 
stantially a  revival  of  that  of  Gautama  the  Buddha,  as, 
indeed,  Schopenhauer,  its  modern  originator,  has  confessed. 


54  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

He  says  that  all  attempts  to  convert  the  Brahmans  and 
Buddhists  to  Christianity  are  of  about  as  much  use  "  as  if 
we  fired  a  bullet  at  a  cliff." 

"  The  ancient  wisdom  of  the  human  race,"  he  goes  on, 
"  will  not  be  displaced  by  what  happened  in  Galilee.  On 
the  contrary,  Indian  philosophy  streams  back  to  Europe, 
and  will  produce  a  fundamental  change  in  our  knowledge 
and  thought."  In  like  manner.  Professor  Reville,  in  his 
classification  of  religions,  brings  Buddhism  and  Christianity 
(though  with  a  very  different  estimate  of  their  relative 
merits)  into  the  same  category.  Of  religions  there  are,  he 
thinks,  five  classes,  (i)  the  simple  worship  of  natural 
objects ;  (2)  the  animist  and  fetichist  religions ;  (3)  the 
great  national  mythologies  founded  on  the  dramatization 
of  nature ;  (4)  the  legalistic  religions ;  (5)  the  religions  of 
redemption  or  deliverance.  In  the  last  category  he  puts 
Christianity  and  Buddhism  by  themselves.  In  doing  so 
he  does  not  mean  to  affirm  that  there  are  no  elements  of 
deliverance  in  other  religions,  but  only  that  in  these  two, 
Christianity  and  Buddhism,  the  aim  at  deliverance,  whether 
from  sin  or  misery,  is  the  determining  principle  of  the 
faith. 

Now,  amongst  all  the  writers  in  the  New  Testament,  no 
one  brings  out  this  distinguishing  element  of  Christianity 
so  sharply,  definitely,  and  largely  as  St.  Paul.  You  will  see 
therefore  that  there  is  a  special  reason  for  comparing  his 
account  of  the  deliverance  of  man  with  that  given  by 
Buddhism  and  Buddhistic  philosophy.  Ordinarily,  no 
doubt,  it  would  be  necessary  to  consider  the  religion,  and 
the  philosophies  founded  on  it,  apart.  For  religion  is 
something  more  than  philosophy.  Its  most  general  defi- 
nition, derived  simply  from  a  consideration  of  what  is 
common  to  all  religions  properly  so  called,  is  that  of  Pro- 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  55 

fessor  Reville.  "  Religion,"  he  says,  "  is  the  determination 
of  human  life  by  the  sentiment  of  a  bond  uniting  the 
human  mind  to  that  mysterious  mind  whose  domination  of 
itself  and  of  the  world  it  recognises,  and  to  whom  it  delights 
in  feeling  itself  united."  Of  this  "  feehng  of  a  bond,"  he 
says  most  truly,  it  is  not  that  merely  of  a  theoretic  relation, 
but  of  a  bond  as  positive  and  as  real  "  as,  for  instance,  the 
force  of  gravitation  which  detains  us  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth."  Man  feels  it  as  soon  as  he  begins  to  think  about 
the  world  which  surrounds  him. 

Religion  is,  in  fact,  in  its  most  general  conception,  no 
other  than  the  instinctive  recognition  of  what  lies  essentially 
in  man's  perception  of  the  universe.  When  he  first  knows 
it,  there  lie  latently  in  his  inward  picture  of  it  the  con- 
ceptions of  the  infinite,  of  the  orderly,  of  the  wise  and  the 
beneficent ;  only  at  first  these  conceptions  are  largely 
implicit.  He  has  not  separated  them  from  his  other 
thoughts  and  feelings,  and  looked  at  them  -  in  abstraction ; 
nor  can  he  make  this  separation  purely  at  a  bound,  but  only 
by  degrees  through  a  succession  of  very  imperfect  detach- 
ments. Because,  however,  these  conceptions  are  really 
present  in  his  mind,  wrapped  up  in  the  uncoiled  multiple 
of  his  thoughts,  man  has  an  instinctive  impression  of  their 
existence,  and  the  feelings  aroused  by  this  impression  are 
a  prophetic  projection  of  thoughts  which  will  become  more 
and  more  explicit  as  life  rises  in  culture.  Listening,  then, 
to  the  whisperings  of  this  instinct,  man  becomes  conscious 
that  there  is  face  to  face  with  his  spirit  another  spirit 
manifested  in  the  world  around  him,  with  which  he  desires 
to  enter  into  communion.  This  desire  is  excited,  not 
merely  by  the  hope  of  gain  or  safety,  but  much  more  by 
the  wish  to  enlarge  and  elevate  his  own  low  and  narrow  life. 

Hence  the  exquisite  charm  of  religion.      It  enlarges  all 


56  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

horizons  ;  intensifies  all  emotions  ;  stimulates  imagination ; 
and  opens  the  way  into  worlds  of  hope  and  love,  which  are 
boundless  and  wonderful.  All  this,  however,  is  conditional 
on  the  assumption  that  the  Being  with  whom  we  seek  union 
is  a  Mind.  As  Reville  puts  it,  '*  The  man  who  feels,  thinks, 
and  desires,  will  always  know  himself  to  be  superior  to  that 
which  has  neither  thought,  nor  feeling,  nor  will."  From 
the  moment  in  which  the  savage  discovers  that  his  fetich  is 
not  a  person  but  a  thing,  he  ceases  to  adore  it.  And  from 
that  first  instant  in  which  the  philosopher  discovers  that 
the  worlds  are  unconscious,  he  will  cry  with  Pascal,  "  I  am 
greater  than  the  Universe,  for  even  if  the  Universe  kills 
me,  I  know  what  it  does,  while  of  the  advantage  which  it 
has  over  me  the  Universe  knows  nothing." 

Such  is  religion  conceived  of  with  the  utmost  generality. 
How,  then,  does  it  differ  from  philosophy?  They  have 
this  in  common,  that  they  both  arise  naturally  from  the 
impulse  in  the  human  mind  to  seek  the  supreme  ground 
and  unity  of  all  things.  But  the  paths  which  they  pursue 
in  their  common  quest  are  different.  Philosophy  proceeds 
by  the  path  of  systematic  thought;  religion,  as  I  have 
pointed  out,  by  that  of  instinctive  feeling.  Philosophy  may 
possibly  get  upon  a  false  track;  then,  as  it  proceeds  by  strictly 
logical  methods,  all  will  be  tainted  by  the  original  error, 
and  this  error  will  only  become  the  more  considerable  as 
speculation  expands  and  advances.  Religion,  on  the  other 
hand,  though  by  no  means  exempt  from  mistakes,  is  far 
less  liable  to  fundamental  fallacies.  The  intuitions  by 
which  its  feelings  are  excited  are  eternally  true,  because 
imposed  by  the  very  constitution  of  man.  And  hence,  what 
religion  lacks  in  sufficiency  of  form  it  makes  up  by  certainty 
of  intuition. 

Philosophies  arise  and  sweep  all  before  them  for  a  time, 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  57 

demanding  even  that  religion  shall  only  exist  as  their  ex- 
pression ;  then  suddenly  they  are  seen  to  be  unreliable,  and 
crash  down  into  ruin.  But  the  religion  which  they  sought 
to  subjugate  lives  on.  It  was  not  really  committed  to  any 
logically  connected  exposition  of  the  intuitions  on  which 
it  rests,  and  was  thus  but  little  disturbed  by  philosophical 
revolutions. 

It  may  appear  at  first  sight,  then,  to  be  rather  unfair  to 
take  any  philosophy  as  an  adequate  representation  of  a 
religion  of  deliverance,  like  Buddhism.  But  the  fact  is 
that,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  Buddhism  is  not  a 
religion  at  all.  In  its  original  form  it  had  no  God.  No 
doubt  in  later  times  its  disciples,  impelled  by  the  craving 
for  some  satisfaction  of  the  religious  instinct,  made  a  god  of 
their  founder,  and  even  appropriated  religious  elements  of 
a  most  unworthy  kind  from  the  low  polytheisms  around 
them.  The  Buddhism  of  Gautama,  however,  the  original 
Buddhism,  has  no  god  at  all,  and  thus,  according  to  our 
definition,  is  no  religion  at  all,  but  simply  a  philosophy. 
In  its  original  form  it  has  all  the  disadvantages  of  Oriental 
obscurity,  and  thus  to  represent  it  by  carefully  reasoned 
Western  systems,  based  on  the  highest  form  of  Western 
philosophy,  that  of  Kant,  is  to  do  it  more  than  justice; 
and,  moreover,  to  make  it  as  nearly  comprehensible  as  so 
obscure  a  philosophy  can  be  made. 

Furthermore,  the  systems  of  Schopenhauer  and  Von 
Hartmann  deserve  to  be  studied  on  account  of  their  own 
position  in  modern  thought.  They  are  philosophies,  not 
merely  of  being  and  knowing,  but  especially  of  redemption. 
It  may  be  that  this  their  declared  aim  has  something  to  do 
with  the  popularity  of  the  later  of  them  in  an  age  which  is 
interested,  above  all  things,  in  the  delivery  of  the  masses  of 
mankind  from  evil  and  misery.    Von  Hartmann's  principal 


58  DANGERS    OF   THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

treatise  has  gained  in  Germany  a  popularity  which,  for  a 
philosophical  work,  is  simply  astonishing.  It  has  run 
through  no  fewer  than  nine  editions,  having  been  apparently 
read  not  only  by  the  small  class  which  is  interested  in 
philosophical  questions,  but  by  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men.  Owing,  I  have  little  doubt,  to  this  circumstance, 
Schopenhauer,  in  spite  of  his  repellent  character  and 
misanthropical  principles,  has  become  at  length  a  great 
name  in  Germany.  A  committee  even  has  been  formed  to 
raise  a  statue  to  his  memory,  which  embraces  the  names 
not  only  of  eminent  Germans,  but  also  of  Americans, 
Indians,  and  Frenchmen,  including  persons  so  well  known 
as  Ernest  Renan,  Max  Miiller,  and  Emile  de  Laveleye. 

What,  then,  let  us  ask,  is  the  method  of  human  re- 
demption proposed  by  these  popular  and  famous  modern 
philosophies  ?  Schopenhauer's  gospel  is  based  upon  a  pecu- 
liar theory  of  being.  He  asks,  like  all  other  philosophers, 
what  is  the  reality  which  shows  itselfin  all  those  appearances 
in  consciousness,  which  make  up  the  sum  of  our  knowledge  ? 
And  he  answers,  it  is,  not  matter,  not  force,  but  will.  "The 
concept  of  will,"  he  says,  "  has  hitherto  been  subordinated 
to  that  of  force,  but  I  reverse  the  matter  entirely,  and 
desire  that  every  force  in  nature  shall  be  thought  as  will." 
His  reason  for  this  demand  is  not  without  its  cogency. 
The  conception  of  force,  he  argues,  is  ultimately  derived 
from  that  of  will.  We  run  up  the  long  line  of  causation 
till  we  come  to  a  point  where  we  can  find  no  further 
antecedent,  and  we  say  that  the  last  link  in  this  chain,  the 
cause  of  all  causes,  is  force. 

But  why  do  we  talk  about  force  ?  How  do  we  gain  the 
conception  of  force?  Simply  from  the  experience  which 
we  have  of  the  effort  of  our  own  will.  "  The  eifort,"  says 
Bishop  Temple,  "  which  is  necessary  when  we  choose  to  do 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  59 

what  we  have  barely  strength  to  do,  impresses  on  us  the 
sense  of  a  force  residing  in  ourselves,  and  capable  of  over- 
coming resistance."  When,  therefore,  we  find  without  us 
that  which  seems  in  like  manner  to  have  the  power  of 
overcoming  resistance,  we  transfer  to  it  the  conception 
of  that  which  we  first  experienced  within,  and  say  that  it 
is  a  force,  or  the  seat  of  force.  But  now,  asks  Schopen- 
hauer, why  do  we  substitute  the  less  known  for  the  better 
known  ?  Force,  as  we  know  it,  is  will.  Why  then  give  it 
the  name  force,  the  name  of  an  uncertain  inference,  simply 
because  it  shows  itself  without  us  ?  It  is  a  will  within,  and 
why  not  therefore  without  ?  Strange  to  say,  the  course  of 
physical  speculation  seems  to  be  leading  thoughtful  men 
more  and  more  in  the  direction  of  this  conclusion.  For 
some  little  time  scientists  were  content  to  rest  in  the 
assumption  that  what  are  called  atoms  are  simply  vortex- 
rings  of  aether. 

Now,  however,  the  suggestion  of  Boscovich,  that  atoms 
are  nothing  but  atomic  centres  of  force,  seems  to  be 
meeting  with  increased  acceptance.  Professor  Clifford 
says,  for  instance  :  "  We  know  with  great  probability  that 
wherever  there  is  an  atom  there  is  a  small  electric  current. 
Very  many  of  the  properties  of  atoms  are  explained  by 
this;  and  we  have  vague  hopes  that  they  all  will  be.  If 
so,  we  shall  say  that  an  atom  is  a  small  current."  But  a 
small  current  of  what  ?  we  ask.  And  already  Wallace  has 
made  answer,  "We  have  traced  one  force  to  an  origin  in 
our  own  will,  while  we  have  no  knowledge  of  any  other 
primary  cause  of  force.  It  does  not  seem  therefore  an 
impossible  conclusion  that  all  force  may  be  will-force,  and 
that  the  whole  universe  is  not  merely  dependent  upon,  but 
actually  is  the  will  of  higher  intelligences,  or  of  one  Supreme 
Intelligence." 


6o  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

But  now,  Schopenhauer,  basing  himself  chiefly  on  the 
phenomena  of  unconscious  cerebration,  goes  a  step  farther, 
and  declares  this  will,  which  is  everything,  to  be  un- 
conscious, a  mere  blind  impulse  to  live.  Von  Hartmann 
has  stated  this  view  (in  which  he  agrees  with  Schopenhauer) 
so  clearly  that  I  will  quote  his  account  of  it.  "  That  piece 
of  matter  yonder,"  says  he,  "  is  a  conglomerate  of  atomic 
forces,  viz.,  of  fiats  of  the  unconscious  to  attract  from  this 
point  of  space  with  this  intensity,  to  repel  from  that  point 
with  that  intensity.  Let  the  unconscious  intermit  these 
acts  of  will,  at  the  same  moment  that  piece  of  matter  has 
ceased  to  exist;  let  the  unconscious  will  anew,  and  the 
matter  is  there  again.  Here  the  prodigy  of  the  creation  of 
the  material  world  is  lost  in  the  marvel  of  its  every-day 
preservation  each  moment,  which  is  a  continuous  creation." 

But,  now,  what  is  the  consequence  of  assuming  that  the 
will  which  stands  behind  and  constitutes  all  existence  is 
nothing  more  than  a  blind  will  to  live  ?  That  the  world  is 
and  must  be  full  of  misery.  For  this  will  which  is  all,  takes 
counsel  of  nothing  but  its  own  selfish  impulse  towards 
realization.  Does  this  realization  involve  to  all  conscious 
creatures  a  perpetual  striving  which  never  reaches  its  goal, 
and  heats  of  passion  succeeded  by  disgusts  of  disappoint- 
ment or  eiitiid?  All  this  is  matter  of  no  concern  to  the 
unconscious.  Its  one  purpose  is  to  pass  into  concrete 
being,  and  if  in  reaching  its  end  it  turns  the  universe  into 
a  shambles,  and  all  consciousness  into  one  deep  protracted 
pain,  all  that  is  nothing.  Live  it  will.  And  to  gain  its 
object  it  will  so  blind  all  creatures  with  the  illusion  of 
pleasure,  that  they  shall  become  voluntary  agents  of  its 
purpose ;  as  ready  to  suffer  for  it,  in  the  insensate  rage  of 
passion  or  acquisition,  as  the  demented  fanatics  of  India  are 
to  throw  their  writhing  bodies  beneath  the  car  of  their  idol. 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  6 1 

What  then  in  these  circumstances  is  the  object  of 
philosophy  ?  To  discover  the  illusion ;  to  detect  the  Al- 
mighty selfishness  at  its  unhallowed  merciless  work,  and 
so  to  point  out  some  means  of  escape  from  its  cruelty. 
But  what  means  of  escape  are  possible  to  us,  it  may  be 
asked,  when  we  ourselves  are  only  a  form  and  objectivation 
of  this  same  blind  impulse  ?  Schopenhauer's  way  of  escape 
is  the  same  as  that  of  Gautama,  a  mystic  asceticism  possible 
only  to  the  few. 

A  man  must  endeavour  to  rise  into  the  world  of  Platonic 
ideas ;  so  to  identify  himself  with  the  objects  of  thought 
that  he  drops  all  self  and  all  willing  out  of  the  process.  If 
the  slightest  scintilla  of  willing  should  intrude  into  this  life 
of  pure  contemplation,  the  thinker  must  hasten  to  sink  his 
"self"  again  in  the  object  of  perception.  He  must  flee 
from  will  into  idea.  But  what,  we  ask,  if  his  very  life,  if  his 
very  self  consists  in  unconscious  willing,  how  is  he  to  give 
up  willing  and  yet  live  ?  Ah  !  replies  Schopenhauer,  blessed 
is  that  man  who  has  so  banished  will  as  to  live  no  more. 
That  is  Nirvana ;  that  is  Paradise.  Every  effort  must  be 
made  to  attain  that  end.  Hence  the  value  of  asceticism, 
for  by  the  refusal  of  what  is  agreeable,  and  by  the  selection 
of  what  is  disagreeable,  man  breaks  the  will  and  predisposes 
himself  to  give  up  willing. 

Mystic  contemplation,  however,  is  the  better  way,  for 
so  a  man  may  first  pass  into  a  state  of  ecstasy  in  which 
he  thinks  without  willing,  and  ultimately  may  reach  the 
pessimistic  heaven,  where  every  manifestation  of  will  is 
abolished,  even  its  most  fundamental  manifestations,  "time 
and  space,  subject  and  object,"  and  there  remains  "  no  will, 
no  idea,  no  word  .  .  .  only  nothingness." 

Schopenhauer  began,  as  we  saw,  with  an  assumption 
which  is  contradicted  by  our  religious  consciousness,  that 


62  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

the  mind  manifested  in  the  world  is  without  freedom  and 
without  thought,  that  it  is  in  fact  no  mind  at  all,  but  a  mere 
blind  impulse  to  live,  w^hich,  unconscious  of  itself,  and 
bound  by  the  iron  fetters  of  necessity,  has  neither  mind  nor 
heart,  neither  wisdom  nor  benevolence.  What  right  had  he, 
then,  to  give  to  this  mere  machine-like  impulse  the  high 
name  of  will  ?  Will  we  know,  and,  as  we  know  it,  it  is  a 
determination  free  to  choose  the  form  of  its  own  realization, 
and  never  choosing  it  till  it  has  taken  counsel  of  intelligence. 

Now  it  is  of  such  a  will  as  this  that  we  discern  the  signs 
in  the  world  without  us.  It  is  with  such  a  will  as  this  that 
we  have  the  instinctive  desire  to  enter  into  union.  Tell  us 
that  the  will  of  the  world  is  only  a  blind  impulse,  and  we 
shall  despise  it  and  refuse  to  believe  in  it,  and  most  of  all 
to  believe  that  in  its  blind,  headlong  course  it  managed  to 
develop  itself  into  us,  free  wills,  capable  of  love,  and  guided 
by  conscious  intelligence.  Is  it  wonderful  then,  that,  be- 
ginning as  Schopenhauer  did,  he  ended  as  he  did  ?  Who 
could  have  any  feeling  towards  his  unconscious  selfishness 
but  one  of  repugnance  ?  who  could  entertain  any  more  hope 
of  life,  if  life  were  nothing  but  the  rush  of  this  blind 
impulse?  Then  certainly  the  only  escape  from  the  will 
to  live  would  be  in  the  will  to  die,  and  in  the  will  (on 
Schopenhauer's  system  an  impotent  one)  to  bring  every- 
thing else  to  death. 

Von  Hartmann,  adopting  Schopenhauer's  system  with 
additions  of  his  own,  imagines  that  he  has  found  a  way  to 
make  this  gospel  of  death  finally  and  universally  efficacious. 
He  is  dissatisfied  with  Schopenhauer's  account  of  that  real 
which  is  the  basis  of  phenomena.  A  blind  impulse,  he 
urges,  starting  from  no  beginning,  and  tending  to  no  end, 
is  a  mere  empty  form  without  contents.  "No  one,"  he 
urges,  "  can  merely  will  without  willing  this  or  that :  a  will 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  63 

which  does  not  will  something  is  not.  No  volition,  as 
Aristotle  said  long  ago,  without  object."  Schopenhauer 
even  without  noticing  it,  gives  an  object  to  his  blind  impulse 
by  calling  it  a  will  to  live.  Its  object  is  to  realize  itself  in 
concrete  forms  of  existence.  Accordingly,  Von  Hartmann 
sets  beside  the  unconscious  will  of  Schopenhauer,  "as 
metaphysical  principle  of  equal  value,"  the  unconscious 
"idea  of  Schelling."  The  All  thinks,  but  it  thinks 
unconsciously,  without  either  knowing  itself  or  what  it  is 
thinking  about.  In  support  of  this  strange  hypothesis  he 
marshals  an  immense  array  of  biological  facts  (the  only 
really  interesting  part  of  his  work)  to  show  that  there  is 
thought  in  nature  of  an  unconscious  kind.  What  his 
instances  actually  prove,  however,  is  something  a  long  way 
short  of  this.  He  shows  that  many  of  the  actions  of  the 
lowest  organisms  betray  the  existence  of  a  rational  purpose. 
It  is  certain,  however,  from  the  extremely  rudimentary 
organization  of  these  creatures,  that  such  a  purpose  has 
never  been  conceived  by  them.  If  not,  then  it  must  have 
been  formed  for  them,  by  something  outside  of  them  ;  by  a 
real  ground  of  their  being  which  is  either  conscious  or 
unconscious  of  what  it  purposes.  The  real  question  is, 
which  of  these  alternatives  shall  we  take  ?  Shall  we  say 
that  the  purpose-forming  Ground  of  Being  is  conscious  or 
unconscious  of  its  own  thought  ?  As  by  hypothesis  the  real 
ground  is  unknowable,  we  can  decide  this  question  in  no 
other  way  than  by  a  reference  to  the  analogy  of  our  own 
experience.  Do  we  know  then  of  any  such  thing  as  thought 
without  a  conscious  thinker  ?  Can  we  conceive  of  any  such 
thing  ?  If  not,  then  the  assumption  of  thought  and  purpose 
in  a  real  Being  who  is  unconscious  of  their  very  existence  is 
purely  arbitrary,  and  appears  to  me  at  least  to  be  utterly 
irrational.      Von   Hartmann's   theory,  therefore,    must  be 


64  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

pronounced  to  rest  partly  on  arbitrary  hypothesis  and 
partly  upon  inconclusive  reasoning.  But  such  as  it  is, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  that  which  alone  directly 
concerns  us,  his  scheme  for  delivering  the  human  race  from 
that  pain  and  misery  which  result  necessarily  from  his  theory 
of  the  nature  of  the  universe. 

His  conception  of  the  process  of  deliverance  is  as 
follows :  In  the  infinite  ages  of  the  past  the  unconscious 
will  to  live  drove  on  blindly  and  peacefully  under  the 
guidance  of  an  unconscious  intelligence  of  whose  very 
existence  it  was  unaware.  At  last,  however,  it  blundered 
into  the  realization  of  organic  existences  which  could  feel 
pain  from  this  everlasting  striving  to  live.  Now,  what  was 
to  be  done?  How  could  this  impetuous  mistake  of  the 
will  to  live  be  rectified?  Bhndly  thinking,  the  unconscious 
All  was  found  equal  to  the  emergency.  It  realized  itself 
in  beings  so  constituted  that  sensational  impressions  were 
followed  by  ideal  reactions  other  than  those  involved  in  the 
will  to  live.  In  the  unconscious,  nothing  could  be  thought 
but  what  was  willed.  But  here,  in  these  new  beings  which 
had  broken  in,  ideas  could  be  seen  and  held  together 
which  were  not  willed,  which  were  only  seen,  and  then  sent 
back  into  the  ideal  world  without  realization. 

Idea  thus  became  separated  from  will,  and  could  be  held 
in  the  mind  apart  from  will.  Seeing  this  for  the  first  time, 
the  unconscious  will  felt  itself  face  to  face  with  a  new  power, 
and  from  its  amazement  at  this  discovery  consciousness 
resulted.  Thus,  cries  Von  Hartmann  in  an  ecstasy,  "  the 
great  revolution  had  come  to  pass;  the  first  step  in  the 
world's  redemption  had  been  taken."  Now  beings  existed  in 
the  world  who  were  capable  of  seeing  through  the  illusion  of 
life.  They  could  discover  that  willing  meant  misery,  and  that 
the  only  way  to  escape  from  misery  was  to  cease  willing. 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  65 

This,  however,  was  but  little  so  long  as  the  impulse  was 
only  to  individual  deliverance.  To  see  salvation  in  such 
deliverance  was  Schopenhauer's  mistake.  What  was  the 
use  of  individual  emancipation  from  the  will  to  live,  so  long 
as  the  infinite  unconscious  went  on  willing  as  usual  ?  In 
the  place  of  the  individual  who  had  willed  himself  out  of 
life,  the  unconscious  will  of  the  universe  brought  a  thousand 
others  into  life,  who  did  but  repeat  the  old  experience 
of  misery.  Nay,  what  deliverance  were  it  if  even  the 
whole  human  race,  individual  by  individual,  willed  itself 
out  of  existence  ?  The  unconscious  would  only  will  into 
existence  other  races  of  sentient  beings  to  repeat  the 
wretchedness  of  those  who  had  gone.  Plainly,  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  misery  and  bring  back  peace  to  the  universe,  it  is 
necessary  in  some  way  to  will  the  unconscious  All  itself  out 
of  existence. 

But  how  could  this  be  done  ?  How  can  the  unconscious 
will,  separated  into  conscious  individuals,  destroy  itself  in 
them  and  the  whole  cosmos  ?  Even  this  does  not  seem 
impossible  to  Von  Hartmann.  Idea  has  been  separated 
from  the  will  to  live  in  conscious  individuals.  This  idea  can 
persist  in  independence.  It  can  even  become  the  master 
of  the  will  to  live.  Seeing  thoroughly  through  the  illusion 
of  life,  and  comprehending  clearly  that  all  willing  whatever 
must  end  in  unblessedness,  it  seizes  upon  its  own  share  of 
willing  to  turn  it  into  a  weapon  against  the  universal  will. 
It  may  be  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  will  which  is  in  its 
very  essence  a  will  to  live  can  be  changed  by  the  stress  of 
an  idea  into  its  opposite  ;  but  even  this  Von  Hartmann 
thinks  he  can  imagine,  and  thence  comes  his  hope  of  a 
radical  and  final  deliverance  from  misery. 

The  day  may  come,  he  thinks,  when  the  major  part  of 
the  whole  willing  which  constitutes  the  universe  may  be 

5 


66  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

concentrated  in  humanity.  Improvements  in  agriculture 
and  the  arts  of  Hfe  may  increase  the  number  of  the  living 
members  of  the  human  race  indefinitely.  If  so,  we  shall 
have  a  will  force  upon  the  earth  which,  considering  its 
quality,  its  possible  intensity  of  effort,  may  be  preponderant 
over  that  other  portion  of  it  which  is  manifested  in  stars  and 
insentient  or  unconscious  existences.  Of  the  stars  only  a 
small  portion,  he  thinks,  have  advanced  to  the  stage  in 
which  they  could  support  sentient  hfe;  and  even  of  that 
small  portion  there  seems  no  probability  that  any  could 
support  sentient  life  of  a  high  order.  If,  then,  the  energy  of 
will  required  to  keep  the  worlds  and  their  contents  in  being 
be  of  so  low  an  order  that  it  is  not  to  be  compared  for 
efficacy  to  that  which  is  concentrated  in  the  human  race, 
what  is  to  prevent  mankind  from  willing  the  whole  out  of 
existence  if  only  all  be  brought  to  combine  in  the  effort  ? 

And  why  should  not  all  be  brought  some  day  into  such 
a  combination  ?  Great  thinkers,  when  they  have  become 
profoundly  penetrated  by  the  conviction  that  the  only  way 
to  stop  misery  is  to  stop  willmg,  will  gradually  impart  their 
conviction  to  others.  Nay,  it  seems  to  Von  Hartmann  that 
this  conviction  is  already  settling  down  into  the  hearts  of 
the  hapless  millions  of  mankind,  through  the  sense  of  their 
own  misery.  People  are  coming  to  hate  life  because  of  its 
wretchedness.  A  pessimistic  melancholy  is  stealing  over 
the  heart  of  the  world.  The  race  is  growing  old  ;  and  as  it 
grows  older  there  is  a  palpable  diminution  in  it  "of  the 
energy  of  feeling  and  passion,"  outcome  of  the  will  to  live. 
Those,  then,  who  have  the  power  are  gradually  acquiring  the 
will  to  use  it. 

Again,  as  a  third  condition  of  deliverance,  we  find  that 
the  communication  of  the  members  of  the  human  race  with 
one  another  is  being  facilitated  by  better  means   of  loco- 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  6/ 

motion.  Thought  and  feeHng  are  becoming  cosmopohtan. 
A  strong  conviction  of  the  vanity  of  hfe  estabHshed  in  one 
part  of  the  world,  may  be  expected  therefore  to  communicate 
itself  rapidly  to  all  the  rest.  And  thus  there  appears  to  be 
a  possibility  that  at  some  future  time  "  the  greater  part  of 
the  spirit  active  in  the  universe  may  form  the  resolve  to  give 
up  willing."  And  then  what  will  happen  ?  "  Conscious- 
ness," says  Von  Hartmann,  "  will  then  suffice  to  hurl  back 
the  total  actual  volition  into  nothingness,  by  which  the 
process  and  the  world  ceases  ;  and  ceases,  indeed,  without 
leaving  any  residuum  whatever,  whereby  the  process  might 
be  continued." 

This  is  salvation  with  a  vengeance.  The  universe  is 
saved  from  misery  by  being  reduced  to  nothing  !  The 
human  race  is  one  day  to  exhibit  its  might,  as  a  god  greater 
than  Buddha,  by  willing  God,  the  world,  and  itself  into 
annihilation.  Like  Samson,  the  human  race,  condemned  to 
grind  for  ages,  blind  and  bound,  in  the  mill  of  a  wretched 
existence,  rises  in  its  might  at  length,  and  seizing  in  its 
awful  grasp  the  vast  pillars  of  the  universe,  buries  itself  and 
its  oppressors  in  a  common  ruin. 

One  may  suspect  indeed  the  pessimist  speculator  of  the 
future  to  give  this  alleged  myth  of  Samson  quite  a  new 
turn.  Samson  is  human  nature,  with  its  strong  animal 
passions  and  its  grand  intuitions  of  the  ideal.  A  Nazarite 
from  its  childhood,  dedicated  by  the  unconscious  idea  to 
the  service  of  deliverance,  and  showing  from  time  to  time 
its  fitness  to  achieve  it,  it  forgets  at  length  its  vocation  in 
passionate  indulgence  of  the  will  to  live.  Israel  may  be 
enslaved,  the  universe  may  be  in  misery,  but  what  is  that 
to  it  so  long  as  it  can  dally  with  its  Delilah-hke  lusts  and 
passions  ? 

At  length,  however,  misfortune  crushes  it.     It  begins  to 


68  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

lose  its  pleasure  in  the  senses.  Its  strength  goes  from  it. 
It  becomes  the  maimed  and  blinded  slave  of  its  passions. 
This  opens  its  eyes.  It  begins  to  yearn  after  redemption, 
and  to  devote  itself  inwardly  to  that  talk  of  universal  de- 
liverance which  it  has  too  long  neglected.  Then  in  the 
prison-house  of  its  pessimism  it  gains  new  strength.  Its 
hair  begins  to  grow;  its  purpose  becomes  clearer;  and 
even  while  the  passions  are  revelling  in  their  triumph,  it 
seizes  the  pillars  of  life,  bows  the  mighty  muscles  of  its 
volition,  and  buries  the  universe  in  ruins. 

Such  is  the  paradise  of  pessimism  ;  such  is  the  Nirvana 
of  our  western  Buddhists ;  such  the  aim  and  hoped-for 
goal  of  the  only  religion  which,  in  common  with  Christianity, 
can  be  called  a  religion  of  deliverance.  Its  gospel  may  be 
expressed  in  one  short  sentence,  Man  is  to  be  delivered 
from  the  will  to  live  by  gaining  the  will  to  die.  Now  can 
we  state  as  shortly  the  gospel  of  the  only  other  religion  of 
deliverance  ?  We  can.  Man  is  to  be  delivered  from  the 
will  to  live  by  gaining  the  will  to  love.  Now,  what  causes 
this  enormous  difference  between  the  two  faiths  ?  The 
difference,  I  answer,  of  their  points  of  departure.  The  Lord 
Jesus  teaches  us  that  the  will  behind,  all  phenomena  is  no 
mere  blind  impulse  to  live,  directed  by  a  thought,  if  it  have 
any  thought,  of  which  it  is  itself  unconscious ;  but  a  will  to 
love,  sustained  by  Infinite  Power,  and  guided  by  Infinite 
Wisdom,  that  its  image  and  reflection  are  to  be  sought  not 
in  what  is  lowest  in  human  life,  but  in  what  is  highest,  in 
the  freedom  of  man's  will,  in  the  consciousness  of  his 
thought,  in  the  light  of  his  conscience,  in  the  unselfishness 
of  his  love. 

The  Infinite  Spirit  is  our  Heavenly  Father,  who  loves  us 
and  cares  for  us,  and  it  is  to  be  the  one  aim  and  purpose 
of  our  life  to  become  "  perfect,  as  our  Father  which  is  in 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  69 

heaven  is  perfect."  Still,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
there  is  a  dark  shadow  over  man's  life.  God  made  him 
free  that  he  might  become  virtuous.  But  he  used  his 
freedom  to  his  own  undoing.  He  has  chosen  to  realize 
the  selfish  will  to  live,  instead  of  the  heavenly  will  to  love. 
Observe,  it  is  this  lower  nature  of  man  which  our  modern 
Buddhists  have  seen  as  reality  behind  all  phenomena. 
And  therefore  their  terrible  pictures  of  what  life  must  be, 
on  their  own  assumption,  are  actually  true  of  those  who 
yield  themselves  to  the  impulse  of  their  lower  nature. 

*'  If  a  man  seeks,"  says  Schopenhauer,  "  with  burning 
eagerness  to  accumulate  everything  to  slake  the  thirst  of 
his  egoism,"  and  thus  experiences,  as  he  inevitably  must, 
"  that  any  finite  appeasing  of  this  fierce  pressure  of  will  is 
impossible,"  the  end  must  be  "  a  sense  of  terrible  desolation 
and  emptiness,  an  eternal  unrest,  an  incurable  pain."  This 
pain  then,  in  the  worst  of  men,  seeks  to  relieve  itself  "  by 
the  sight  of  the  suffering  of  others."  At  this  stage  the  will 
to  enjoy  passes  over  into  one  of  pure  malevolence,  into 
those  monstrous  forms  of  humanity  which  are  presented  in 
the  Neros  and  Domitians  of  history,  demons  incarnate,  who 
live  in  all  the  torments  of  an  earthly  hell.  This  is  the  gulf 
of  misery  which  ever  yawns  in  front  of  those  who  give  them- 
selves up  to  the  impulse  of  man's  lower  nature,  of  the  selfish 
will  to  live. 

Now,  this  lower  nature  exists  in  every  man,  and  is  ever 
striving  to  overcome  the  will  to  love,  that  image  of  the 
Heavenly  Father  in  which  man  was  created.  The  struggle 
between  these  two  natures,  the  lower  and  the  higher,  is 
the  actual  process  of  the  spiritual  life  of  every  man.  When 
the  will  to  live  preponderates  the  man  becomes  bad ;  when 
it  triumphs,  and  utterly  quenches  the  will  to  love,  the  man 
becomes  a  fiend,  like  Nero.     When,   on  the  other  hand, 


70  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

the  will  to  love  preponderates,  the  man  is  good  ;  when  it 
triumphs,  and  quells  the  will  to  live,  the  man  becomes  a 
saint,  like  St.  Paul. 

The  question,  then,  of  prime  importance  in  human  life  is 
this,  How  can  the  will  to  love  be  made  to  subdue  within 
us  the  will  to  live  :  how  can  the  will  of  the  Gospel  suppress 
the  will  of  Pessimism  ?  It  is  with  that  question  that  the 
gospel  according  to  St.  Paul  is  mainly  concerned,  and  it  is 
its  answer  to  that  question  which  furnishes  its  glad  tidings. 
No  law  can  give  the  victory  to  the  will  to  love.  Law  does 
but  declare  that  it  ought  to  prevail.  No  mere  unassisted 
effort  of  man  can  secure  that  victory,  because  the  will  to 
live  is  too  powerful  within  us. 

How,  then,  is  our  weak  will  to  love  to  be  so  reinforced 
that  it  can  attain  final  and  decisive  ascendency  ?  It  can 
only  get  the  help  it  needs  in  Christ.  Our  Heavenly  Father, 
pitying  our  weakness  and  seeking  our  salvation,  sent  His 
only-begotten  Son  to  fight  for  us  the  battle  of  the  two 
wills. 

Christ  being  true  man  had  in  His  humanity  in  germ  and 
potency  the  will  to  live  as  well  as  the  will  to  love.  The  will 
to  live  in  Him  could  be  tempted  to  selfish  excess.  It  was 
so  tempted.  But  His  own  inherent  will  to  love  rose  in  its 
might  and  overcame  the  temptation.  Never  for  an  instant 
was  the  will  to  live  allowed  by  Him  to  become  selfish. 

Still,  the  battle  was  hard  and  long.  He  was  assailed  by 
seduction,  by  applause,  by  misunderstanding,  by  hate  and 
opposition,  by  pain,  torture,  and  death;  but  through  all 
the  will  to  love,  to  love  even  those  who  hated  and  slew 
Him,  obtained  a  perfect  victory.  He  spent  and  gave  his 
hfe  to  save  men,  even  the  worst,  from  the  selfish  desolating 
will  to  live.  And  then,  says  St.  Paul,  having  won  the  victory? 
He  passed  into  the  unseen  world    that  thence  He  might 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSK.  7 1 

send  forth  His  Spirit  into  the  hearts  of  all  who  believed 
on  Him. 

Weak,  then,  as  we  are  by  nature,  "  we  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ,  who  strengtheneth  us."  We  needed  not  a 
dead  law  to  command  and  condemn,  but  a  heavenly  force  to 
enter  our  hearts,  which,  without  abolishing  our  will,  should 
reinforce  it  and  give  it  energy  to  love.  Christ  supplies  that 
need.  He  gives  us  more  than  a  command  which  we  could 
not  obey,  more  than  an  example  which  we  could  not  imitate. 
He  gives  us  will-force,  the  aid  of  His  own  Divine  Spirit  to 
dwell  in  us  and  renew  us  unto  holiness.  "  The  flesh  may 
still  lust  against  the  spirit,  and  the  spirit  against  the  flesh ; " 
but  "if  we  be  led  by  the  spirit  we  are  not  under  the  law." 

Conflict  there  will  still  be,  failure  there  will  still  be ;  many 
an  error,  many  a  fall,  many  an  hour  of  heart-ache  and 
bitter  repentance  ;  but  to  those  who  cling  to  Christ  and  pray 
for  the  aid  of  His  Spirit,  strength  shall  never  be  wanting,  nor 
the  sense  of  pardon,  nor  the  calm  of  inward  peace.  And 
when  at  last  the  end  comes,  instead  of  longing  to  escape 
from  the  misery  of  willing  into  the  silence  and  darkness  of 
death,  the  faithful  Christian  shall  be  able  to  say  with  St.  Paul, 
"  I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  I 
have  kept  the  faith ;  henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a 
crown  of  righteousness ; "  the  will  to  live  in  me  has  been 
changed  wholly,  not  into  the  will  to  die,  but  into  that  will 
to  love  which  is  the  will  of  Him  "who  loved  me  and  gave 
Himself  for  me." 


V. 

We  have  seen  that  there  is  spiritual  discord  in  man,  a 
conflict  between  two  wills,  the  will  to  live  and  the  will  to 
love.  Man's  salvation,  his  deliverance  from  internal  discord 
and  misery,  depends  on  his  ability  to  make  the  will  to  love 
in  him  triumph  over  the  will  to  live.  How,  then,  is  this 
end  to  be  achieved  ?  Can  it  be  secured  by  law  ?  No ;  law 
can  only  point  to  what  should  be  done,  can  never  secure 
that  it  shall  be  done.  Can  unassisted  effort  then  ?  No ; 
the  will  to  live  in  each  individual  too  far  preponderates  over 
the  will  to  love.  What,  then,  in  this  emergency  is  to  be 
done  ?  How  can  man  be  saved,  not  merely  from  the 
consequences  of  his  sin,  that  were  little,  but  from  sin 
itself  ?  St.  Paul  tells  us  that  the  possibility  of  this  deliverance 
has  been  established  by  the  creation  in  human  life  of  a 
new  religious  synthesis,  of  a  union  new,  but  most  real  and 
inward,  between  the  soul  and  its  glorified  Saviour. 

The  mere  announcement  of  such  a  fact  as  this,  not 
merely  supernatural,  but  super-intelligible,  is  often  met  by 
an  incredulous  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  or  by  the  remark 
that  we  have  got  beyond  all  that,  and  that  in  these  days  we 
only  believe  what  we  can  see  or  understand.  That  sounds 
very  wise,  but,  as  all  real  thinkers  know,  is  in  truth  very 
shallow,  the  fact  being  that  we  can  understand  through  and 
through  no  single  least  thing  in  all  our  experience  and 
thought. 

Some  of  the  profoundest  words  which  have  been  uttered 


THE   GAL  ATI  AN    LAPSE.  J I 

in  this  generation  have  been  cast  by  the  Poet  Laureate 
into  the  quaint  and  crabbed  form  of  a  poem  of  some  dozen 
lines.  There  is  not  charm  enough  in  their  form  to  stamp 
them  upon  the  memory,  but  they  are  to  the  effect,  that  if 
we  could  understand  all  about  the  little  flower  growing  in 
the  wall-cranny,  we  should  understand  God  and  man,  and 
all  things.  To  understand  any  one  thing  to  the  very  bottom 
is  to  understand  everything. 

I  daresay  many  of  you  will  remember  Plato's  beautiful 
representation  of  the  nature  of  human  knowledge.  He 
supposes  a  number  of  men  in  a  cave,  tied  to  chairs,  with 
their  faces  to  the  cave  wall  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
canrfot  turn  their  heads.  Behind  them  is  lighted  a  fire, 
and  between  them  and  the  fire  a  number  of  people  pass, 
whose  shadows  are  thrown  on  the  wall  of  the  cave.  The 
tied  men  can  see  the  shadows,  but  they  cannot  turn  their 
heads  and  see  the  real  persons  who  cast  those  shadows. 

So  is  it  with  our  knowledge.  Our  spirit  sees  the  shadows 
of  realities  cast  on  the  cave  wall  of  consciousness,  but  it 
cannot  turn  its  head  and  see  the  realities  themselves.  To 
know  all  about  the  litde  flower  in  the  wall-cranny  would  be 
to  turn  our  heads  and  see  reality ;  an  apocalypse  far  more 
wonderful  than  has  ever  yet  been  shown  to  man.  Let  this 
be  recognised  at  once,  then,  that  no  man  completely  under- 
stands anything.  No  man  can  turn  his  head  and  look  at 
reality.  And  yet,  for  all  that,  our  minds  are  so  constituted 
that  we  cannot  help  believing  in  reality,  and,  moreover, 
that  there  is  a  possibility  of  union  between  the  reality  which 
we  name  ourselves,  and  that  which  reveals  itself  in  nature. 
Call  this  latter  reality  what  you  will,  matter,  or  force,  or 
will,  it  cannot  produce  changes  in  us  through  the  changes 
in  our  body.  These  outward  or  bodily  changes  we  can,  in 
a  way,  understand.      They  are  all  ultimately  reducible  to 


74  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

molecular  vibrations  of  the  nerves.  Let  the  impulse  from 
the  outward  reality  approach  us  through  what  sense  soever 
it  may,  whether  through  eye,  or  ear,  or  touch,  it  ends  by 
producing  molecular  vibrations  in  the  brain. 

That  is  the  last  fact  of  which  physiology  can  tell  us. 
But  how  we  are  able  to  turn  these  various  simple  vibrations, 
now  into  our  sensation  of  sound,  and  now  into  the  totally 
distinct  sensation  of  light  or  heat,  no  one  can  tell  us.  We 
do  it ;  but  how,  nobody  can  divine.  But  do  we,  therefore, 
disbelieve  that  the  thing  is  done  ?  Does  our  defect  of 
understanding  disturb  for  one  moment  our  belief  that  the 
reality  without,  be  it  what  it  may,  has  entered  into  a  real 
and  mutual  relation  with  the  reality  within,  be  that  wttat  it 
may  ?  Not  for  one  moment.  Let  us,  then,  apply  this 
illustration  to  the  case  of  religion. 

What  did  we  find  in  our  last  lecture  was  the  latest  and 
most  general  definition  of  religion,  according  to  Professor 
Reville  ?  It  ran  thus  :  "  Religion  is  the  determination  of 
human  life  by  the  sentiment  of  a  bond  uniting  the  human 
mind  with  that  mysterious  mind  whose  domination  of  itself 
and  of  the  world  it  recognises."  Now,  what  is  there  in  this 
conclusion  which  goes  beyond  that  which  I  have  just 
reached,  and  which  every  thoughtful  man  admits  ?  The 
name  '*  mind  "  has  been  given  to  the  inward  and  outward 
reality  instead  of  the  perfectly  general  designation,  '*  be  it 
what  it  may."  Now,  why  is  this  change  made  ?  We  know 
ourselves  to  be  minds,  conscious  minds,  capable  of  will  and 
intelligence,  and  because  we  see  in  nature  signs  of  the 
operation  of  a  similar  mind,  and  at  the  same  time  feel  in 
our  hearts  the  longing  for  union  with  such  a  mind,  we 
postulate  the  great  synthesis  of  religion.  And  experience 
justifies  that  postulate.  There  is  such  a  union,  and  it  is 
the   joy,  the    charm,   the   enlargement,   the   elevation,   the 


TPIE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  75 

enfranchisement  of  our  whole  life.  Before,  then,  you  can 
kill  religion,  you  must  destroy  humanity,  for  belief  in 
religion  is  bound  up  with  the  very  roots  of  its  existence. 

But  still  are  there,  let  us  ask,  no  rational  difficulties  in 
religion  ?  Nay,  the  whole  subject  bristles  with  them. 
How  can  a  union  take  place,  it  may  be  asked,  between 
realities  so  incommensurable,  without  disturbing  if  not 
destroying  the  fundamental  properties  of  the  weaker? 
How  can  man's  freedom  of  will  be  preserved  in  union 
with  a  will  which  is  Almighty  ?  How  can  the  distinction 
of  finite  individuality  be  preserved  when  the  pious  soul 
loses  itself  in  God  ?  The  answer  is  that  all  these  diffi- 
culties mean  not  impossibilities  in  fact,  but  limitations  in 
our  power  of  thinking.  The  great  union  does  take  place,  and 
no  such  consequences  follow  as  our  feeble  thought  forecast. 

Union  with  God  brings  with  it  not  only  joy  and  light,  but 
also  an  intensification  and  heightening  of  the  very  powers 
which  we  feared  it  would  obliterate.  Will  especially  now 
feels  itself  able  to  do  what  conscience  demands  and  reason 
commends,  it  can  realize  the  life  of  love.  Instead  of 
extinguishing  freedom,  the  great  religious  synthesis  has 
increased  it.  Every  voice  of  every  religious  soul  under 
every  sky,  in  every  age,  affirms  that  it  is  so.  What,  then, 
is  the  value  of  the  objection  that  we  cannot  understand 
how  it  is  ?  Reality  is  always  greater  than  thought.  It 
shrouds  mysteries  which  thought  cannot  penetrate.  It  only 
shows  us  its  shadows  on  the  wall.  Now,  St.  Paul,  as  we 
saw,  taught  the  possibility  of  another  and  a  more  fruitful 
spiritual  synthesis,  of  a  union,  not  only  between  the  soul 
and  God,  but  also  between  the  soul  and  the  glorified  Christ. 
It  is  sought,  as  I  have  said,  to  exclude  the  consideration  of 
this  teaching  by  the  initial  rationalistic  objection  that  we 
cannot  tell  how  such  a  thing  may  be. 


^6  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLlC    AGE. 

But  what  is  the  value  of  that  objection  in  the  hght  of 
what  has  just  been  urged  ?  You  cannot  tell  how  anything 
can  be ;  how  the  little  flower  in  the  wall-cranny  can  be  what 
it  is ;  how  the  soul  of  man  can  enter  into  communion  with 
nature  or  with  God.  But  are  you  then  so  foolish  as  to 
proclaim  a  universal  scepticism  ?  No  ;  you  appeal  to  expe- 
rience, and  you  bid  thought  to  remember  that  it  is  not 
the  judge,  but  the  mere  observer  and  creature  of  reality. 
Whether  there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  a  real  union  between 
the  soul  and  the  glorified  Christ  is  a  question  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  appropriate  evidence,  and  its  consideration 
is  not  to  be  intercepted  or  prejudiced  by  the  utterly  irre- 
levant objection  that  we  are  not  able  to  understand  how 
it  can  be.  Its  affirmation  is  at  any  rate  the  central  fact  of 
the  Pauline  Gospel.  It  would  weary  you  if  I  attempted  to 
show  how  many  critics  and  religious  teachers  have  recog- 
nised this  truth. 

Two  testimonies,  however,  I  will  cite,  as  those  of  men 
w^hose  freedom  from  dogmatic  bias  is  as  conspicuous  as 
their  keen  critical  ability.  I  mean  F.  C.  Baur  and  Professor 
Jowett.  I  have  frequently  had  occasion  to  differ  from  Baur, 
but  I  bear  willing  testimony  to  the  masterly  way  in  which, 
in  general,  he  has  analysed  St.  Paul's  teaching.  AVhat, 
then,  according  to  him,  is  the  central  thought  of  the 
Apostle?  "The  fundamental  and  ever-recurring  thought 
of  the  Apostle,"  says  he,  "is  that  only  in  union  with 
Christ  can  the  Christian  be  what  he  is  and  ought  to  be 
as  a  Christian  ;  that  in  Him  alone  has  he  the  essential 
principle  of  his  being  and  his  living,  or  is  he  himself  a 
Christ,  as  the  German  language  expresses  so  significantly, 
in  the  Christian  name." 

Not  less  decided  and  explicit  is  the  opinion  of  Professor 
Jowett.     "  Everywhere  St.  Paul  speaks  of  the  Christian  as 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  77 

one  with  Christ.  He  is  united  with  Him,  not  in  His  death 
only,  but  also  in  all  the  stages  of  His  existence.  .  .  .  There 
is  something  meant  by  this  language,  which  goes  beyond 
the  experience  of  ordinary  Christians.  Something,  perhaps, 
more  mystical  than  in  these  latter  days  of  the  world  most 
persons  seem  to  be  capable  of  feeling ;  yet  the  main  thing 
signified  is  the  same  for  all  ages,  the  knowledge  and  love 
of  Christ,  by  which  men  pass  out  of  themselves  to  make 
their  will  His  and  His  theirs.  And  often  they  walk  with 
Him  on  earth,  not  in  a  figure  only ;  and  find  Him  near 
them,  not  in  a  figure  only,  in  the  valley  of  death."  These 
last  touching  words,  coming  from  a  man  so  sincere  and 
reticent,  are  something  more  than  a  statement  of  what 
St.  Paul  teaches.  They  are  Professor  Jowett's  own  testimony 
to  the  reality  of  the  fact  which  that  teaching  expresses. 
I  recognise,  of  course,  that  if  I  ask  you  to  believe  that  the 
affirmation  of  a  spiritual  union  between  Christ  and  the 
believer  is  the  central  truth  of  St.  Paul's  doctrine,  I  must 
give  you  other  evidence  besides  that  of  the  opinions  of 
great  critics,  however  eminent. 

But  here  I  am  met  by  a  difficulty.  The  Scriptural  evi- 
dence of  the  fact  becomes  perplexing  by  its  very  abundance. 
Its  exhibition  becomes  a  question  not  of  citing  a  few  proof 
texts,  but  of  quoting  large  portions  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles, 
and  of  caUing  attention,  not  only  to  explicit  statements,  but 
to  obscure  and  underlying  currents  of  sentiment,  which  are 
sometimes  more  convincing  than  any  statements  in  the 
world.  It  is  thus  impossible  to  produce  all  the  Scriptural 
evidence,  but  I  will  try  to  help  your  thought  by  referring  to 
expressions  which  may  suggest  many  others. 

There  is  one  pregnant  expression  of  St.  Paul,  which  is 
often,  unfortunately,  concealed  in  the  Authorised  Version 
by  loose  translation.      I  me^n  the  phrase  "  in  Christ,"     Of 


78  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

course,  if  the  thought  of  union  with  Christ  be  central  with 
St.  Paul,  we  should  expect  him  to  see  and  to  say  that  all 
our  graces,  privileges,  and  achievements  are  to  be  found  or 
gained  in  Christ. 

And  this  he  actually  does  say,  as  the  following  sentences 
will  indicate  :  "  The  grace  of  God  is  given  you  in  Christ;" 
"There  is  no  condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ 
Jesus  ;  "  "  We  are  sanctified  in  Christ  Jesus  ;  "  '  We  are 
created  in  Christ  Jesus  to  good  works  ; "  "  We  are  alive 
unto  God  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord;  "  "If  any  man  be  in 
Christ  he  is  a  new  creature;  "  "To  me  to  live  is  Christ ;  " 
"  Ye  are  dead,  and  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God ; " 
"  Christ  in  you,  the  hope  of  glory ; "  "  Of  Him  are  ye  in 
Christ  Jesus,  who  is  made  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteous- 
ness, and  sanctification  and  redemption."  And,  as  the 
crowning  passage  of  this  class,  and  the  one  which  most 
clearly  expresses  what  they  all  declare,  "  I  live,  yet  not  I,  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me." 

Again,  St.  Paul  strives  to  suggest  the  intimacy  of  the 
spiritual  union  between  Christ  and  believers  by  certain 
striking  images.  He  compares  it  to  that  of  the  stones  of  a 
building,  "  In  whom  ye  are  builded  together  for  an  habita- 
tion of  God  through  the  Spirit ; "  and,  once  more,  to  the  vital 
bond  which  unites  the  head  and  members  of  a  body,  "Ye 
aie  the  body  of  Christ ; "  "  Grow  up  into  Him  in  all  things 
which  is  the  head,  even  Christ." 

Further,  and  this  is  most  significant  of  the  central  import- 
ance which  he  attached  to  the  truth  we  are  considering,  he 
saw  it  embodied  in  concrete  shape  in  the  two  great  sacra- 
ments of  the  Christian  Church.  Christians,  he  says,  are 
buried  with  Christ  in  baptism,  in  which  also  they  have  risen 
with  Him.  Nay,  he  goes  so  far  as  to  say  to  the  Galatians, 
"  As  many  as  haye  been  baptized  into  Christ  have  put  on 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  79 

Christ;"  upon  which  passage  Baur  remarks:  "He  who 
puts  on  a  garment  goes  altogether  inside  it,  and  identifies 
himself  with  it,"  as  happens  to  the  Christian  "  in  this  new 
relation,  which  is  entered  externally  by  baptism,  internally 
by  faith." 

Not  less  clear  and  significant  again  is  the  Apostle's  teach- 
ing on  Holy  Communion.  He  sees  in  the  bread  which  is 
broken  "the  communion  of  the  body  of  Chiist,"  as  in  the 
cup  "  the  communion  of  His  blood."  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  Baur  calls  the  Lord's  Supper  "  the  central  point  of  the 
Christian  religion  ; "  just  as  the  sacrificial  altar  was  of  Judaism, 
and  the  sacrificial  cultus  generally  of  heathenism.  The 
Christian  Church  has  certainly  not  been  mistaken  in  con- 
cluding that  when  her  Master  separated  and  embodied  in 
visible  form  the  great  spiritual  truth  that  all  her  life  must 
come  from  His  death,  and  be!  appropriated  by  her  faith,  he 
was  setting  before  her  eyes  that  truth  which  was  of  most 
essential  import.  Why,  indeed,  is  this  sacred  dramatization 
of  one  particular  truth  to  be  perpetually  repeated,  set  before 
men's  eyes  again  and  again,  and  pressed  home  upon  their 
hearts  with  all  its  life-giving  power  whenever  they  come 
together  to  break  the  bread  ?  Because  in  it  was  set  forth, 
in  a  shape  equally  intelligible  to  rich  and  poor,  to  those 
whose  hearts  were  to  be  reached  through  their  thoughts, 
and  to  those  whose  hearts  were  to  be  reached  through 
their  eyes,  the  one  great  central  truth  of  the  faith,  that  all 
life  is  to  be  sought  in  Christ,  that  all  power  of  righteous 
willing  is  to  be  gained  from  Christ,  and  that  all  filial  com- 
munion with  God  is  to  be  kept  in  Christ.  Every  faithful 
and  devout  communion  was  thus  to  bring  to  mind  those 
wonderful  words  of  the  Master,  "  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the 
branches.  As  the  branch  cannot  bring  forth  fruit  except  it 
^bide  in  the  vine,  no  more  can  ye  except  ye  abide  in  Me ; " 


80  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

and  again,  "  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  man,  and 
drink  His  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you." 

I  assume,  of  course,  that  in  these  latter  words  our  Lord 
pointed  to  a  spiritual  fact.  And  how  can  this  be  doubted? 
Have  you  any  doubt  of  the  meaning  of  the  metaphor  when 
it  is  said  of  husband  and  wife  that  they  shall  be  one  flesh  ? 
Do  you  think  when  you  hear  these  words  of  any  mere 
material  connection?  Not  for  a  moment.  You  know  it 
means  that  husband  and  wife  shall  be  as  truly  one  in 
thought,  feeling,  and  will  as  if  their  souls  dwelt  in  one 
tabernacle,  as  if  they  formed  "a  two-celled  heart,  beating 
with  one  full  stroke."  The  metaphor  is  so  strong,  because 
it  has  to  picture  forth  a  spiritual  relationship  so  close. 
Now,  taking  this  common-sense  canon  with  you  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  other  metaphor,  can  there  be  any 
doubt  of  its  scope  and  import  ? 

Why  does  Christ  in  this  latter  case  so  far  strengthen  the 
figure  as  to  declare  that  we  must  not  only  become  part  of 
His  flesh,  but  further  eat  and  assimilate  it  ?  Plainly,  because 
of  the  greater  closeness  and  intimacy  of  the  bond  which  is 
to  bind  us  to  the  Bridegroom  of  our  souls.  We  are  not 
only  to  be  one  with  Him,  but  are  to  be  so  wholly  filled  and 
formed  by  that  spirit  of  His  which  we  gain  in  faith,  that  it 
is  no  longer  an  exaggeration  to  say  with  the  Apostle,  "  I 
live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  There  you  have 
got  to  the  very  heart  of  the  heart  of  the  Christian  faith. 
There  you  come  plumb  centre.  Everything  leads  up  to 
that ;  everything  goes  forth  from  that.  No  doctrine  is  true 
which  does  not  rest  on  that  fact  and  utter  it.  No  life  is 
Christian  which  does  not  go  forth  from  it  and  exhibit  it.  It 
shows  us  that  a  Christian  is  nothing  less  than  Christ  born 
again  in  a  new  individual  soul,  and  that  the  Church  is 
simply  here  to  proclaim  and  facilitate  this  new  birth  gf 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  8  I 

men.  When  the  church  does  this  it  does  its  work,  and  if 
it  fails  in  this,  no  matter  what  its  theology,  or  its  ecstasy, 
or  its  ritual,  or  its  outward  activity,  it  might  just  as  well 
be  a  mere  philosophical  school,  or  worse,  a  heathen  cult, 
"  a  creed  outworn." 

In  one  word,  Christ  came  in  the  flesh,  to  establish  a  new 
religious  synthesis,  a  closer  union  between  heaven  and  earth, 
a  nearer  and  a  dearer  and  a  more  fruitful  bond,  of  which 
He  was  Himself  the  central  link,  between  man  and  God. 
But  nOAv,  if  this  were  the  great  object  of  Christ's  coming, 
life,  death,  and  resurrection,  we  may  easily  see  that  it  must 
have  involved  two  results  of  vast  and  eternal  significance  ; 
the  one  objective  and  the  other  subjective,  the  one  having 
reference  to  God,  and  the  other  to  man.  If  Christ  be  the 
germ  and  basis  of  a  new  humanity,  the  question  may  first 
be  asked,  how  will  God  regard  and  treat  this  new  humanity; 
and,  secondly,  since  this  humanity  is  a  spiritual  body,  into 
which  men  are  not  naturally  born,  but  into  which  they 
must  come  by  some  spiritual  act  or  acts  of  their  own,  the 
question  may  be  asked,  What  must  men  do  in  order  to  enter 
this  body  ? 

The  former  question  I  shall  deal  with  in  my  last  lecture ; 
the  latter  I  shall  attempt  to  answer  now. 

To  the  latter  question.  St.  Paul's  answer  is  given  shortly, 
but  fully  and  unmistakably,  in  Gal.  ii.  i,  "  We  believed  in 
Jesus  Christ  that  we  might  be  justified  by  belief  of  Christ, 
and  not  by  works  of  law."  We  have  seen  before  that  it  is 
only  when  we  are  in  Christ,  vitally  united  to  Him,  that 
He  is  made  unto  us  righteousness.  When,  therefore,  we 
are  told  that  this  righteousness  which  He  is  made  unto  us 
comes  by  faith,  and  not  by  works  of  law,  this  is  equivalent 
to  the  statement  that  it  is  by  faith  alone  we  enter  into  union 
with  Christ. 

6 


82  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Works  of  law  are,  indeed,  necessary  to  us.  No  man  can 
be  a  true  Christian  whose  life  is  not  determined  by  the 
twofold  law,  "  Thou  shalt  love  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  If  faith  be  real  and  Christian,  it 
will  thus  "work  by  love."  Still  work  is  not  the  means,  nor 
is  love  the  means,  by  which  we  come  unto  Christ,  and 
submit  to  Christ,  and  give  over  our  will  to  Christ.  The  act 
by  which  we  do  this,  and  by  which  alone,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  we  can  do  it,  is  that  act  of  utter  trust  and  self- 
surrender  which  we  call  faith.  When  people  have  not  seen 
this,  but  have  attached  to  Christian  faith  others  of  the 
several  meanings  which  in  course  of  time  have  gathered 
round  it,  this  has  mainly  been  because  they  have  failed  to 
notice  that  Christian  faith  is,  in  its  central  and  highest 
meaning,  affiance  on  a  person,  and  not  merely  belief  in  a 
truth  or  a  fact. 

When  St.  Paul  was  asked  by  the  Philippian  gaoler,  what 
he  should  do  to  be  saved,  the  Apostle  answered,  "  Believe 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; "  not  on  a  gospel  or  a  law,  but 
on  a  Person,  on  Jesus  Christ.  In  like  manner  he  says  to 
the  Romans,  "Ye  are  the  children  of  God  by  faith  in  Christ 
Jesus,"  and  to  the  Philippians,  "To  you  it  is  given  to 
believe  in  Him." 

Again,  we  observe  that  the  Apostle's  teaching  did  but 
echo  that  of  his  Divine  Master.  "He  that  believeth  on 
Me,"  said  our  Lord,  "shall  never  thirst."  "He  that 
believeth  on  Me  hath  everlasting  life."  "  He  that  liveth 
and  believeth  on  Me  shall  never  die."  The  corresponding 
passage  in  the  Synoptical  Evangelists  is  equally  tender  and 
clear:  "Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  My  yoke  upon  you, 
and  learn  of  Me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and 
ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls." 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  83 

Now  the  faith  that  is  fixed  on  a  person  is  by  that  very 
fact  declared  to  be  trust  or  affiance.  When  I  say  I  believe 
in  a  man,  not  in  his  teaching  or  his  testimony,  but  in  him, 
I  mean  that  I  have  learnt  to  trust  him,  that  I  lean  on 
him,  and  that,  more  or  less,  I  allow  him  to  lead  and  direct 
me  both  in  opinion  and  in  life.  And  if  the  man  whom 
I  trust  were  like  Jesus  Christ,  one  whom  I  could  trust 
inimitably,  I  should  be  ready,  in  that  case,  to  yield  up  to 
him  my  whole  heart  and  will.  But,  now,  in  connection  with 
the  Lord  Jesus,  we  have  found  a  further  special  reason  for 
this  trust.  As  glorified  Saviour,  He  has  constituted  a  new 
bond  of  union  between  me  and  God.  In  Christ  I  find  my 
Heavenly  Father.  In  Him  I  find  equally  my  Father's 
pardon  and  favour,  and  my  own  life  and  power  to  do  well. 
And,  therefore,  believing  in  Christ  means,  not  only  trust 
for  example  and  guidance,  but  also  for  power  and  peace,  for 
life  and  death,  for  time  and  eternity.  P2very  careful  student 
of  the  New  Testament  has  found  accordingly,  in  this  self- 
surrender  to  Christ,  the  profounder  meaning  of  faith. 

"  That,"  says  Jowett,  "  which  takes  us  out  of  ourselves 
and  links  us  with  Christ,  which  anticipates  in  an  instant 
the  rest  of  life,  which  is  the  door  of  every  heavenly  and 
spiritual  relation,  is  faith." 

"  Faith,"  says  Archdeacon  Farrar,  "  is  man's  trustful  ac- 
ceptance of  God's  gift,  rising  to  absolute  self-surrender,  and 
culminating  in  personal  union,  with  Christ." 

"The  result  of  faith,"  again  says  Reuss,  "is  the  abne- 
gation of  the  man's  own  will,  the  abdication  of  self  .  .  . 
an  absolute  subordination,  in  short,  of  the  whole  human 
personality  to  the  personality  of  the  Saviour."'  "  We  arrive 
here,"  he  proceeds,  "  at  a  capital  dogma  of  the  Pauline 
theology,  which  may  be  said  to  govern  all  the  rest.  Faith 
lies  beyond  the  province  of  analysis,  for  it  may  be  laid  down 


84  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

as  a  fundamental  principle  that  in  this  faith  the  life  of  the 
individual  is  merged  in  a  life  not  his  own." 

Of  course  such  faith  as  this  does  not  arise  in  the  heart 
without  preparation.  You  cannot  trust  one  whom  you  have 
never  known,  and  never  learnt  in  some  measure  to  love. 
And  so,  before  faith  can  be  possible,  there  must  be  an 
exercise  of  reason  to  know  the  Christ,  and  a  going  forth  of 
love  produced  by  such  knowledge.  Neither  of  these,  how- 
ever, is  Christian  faith.  Both  together  are  conditions  of 
that  change  of  mind  towards  Christ  which  is  expressed  in 
our  word  repentance.  Both  may  exist  in  considerable  degree, 
and  yet  not  be  intense  enough  to  induce  a  man  to  make 
that  act  of  utter  self-surrender  which  is  meant  by  faith.  A 
man  may  know  and  love  Christ;  he  may  hover  near  to 
Christ.  Like  the  wise  scribe  of  the  Gospel,  he  may  not  be 
far  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  And  yet  because  he  has 
not  made  the  great  resolve  to  give  up  not  only  the  whole 
world,  but  self  also  for  Christ,  he  has  not  passed  into 
the  kingdom,  he  has  not  crossed  the  bounds  of  the  new 
humanity. 

"  Faith,"  says  Reuss,  "  is,  according  to  St.  Paul,  at  once 
an  act  of  the  reason,  or  conviction  ;  an  act  of  the  heart, 
or  trust ;  an  act  of  the  will,  or  self-surrender.  The  last 
element  is,  however,  the  most  important  of  the  three ; 
the  only  one,  indeed,  which  makes  faith  the  centre  of  the 
whole  system,  since  by  it  alone  does  faith  become  the 
means  of  justification." 

Now  a  man  may,  to  a  certain  extent,  believe  on  Christ 
with  his  reason,  and  trust  Christ  with  his  heart,  while  yet  he 
holds  back  that  decisive  act  of  will  by  which  he  surrenders 
himself  to  what  he  knows  and  loves.  Does  any  one  doubt 
whether  such  whole-hearted  self-surrender  be  necessary  in 
a  Christian  man  ?  Let  him  remember  the  Lord's  own  words, 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  85 

"  If  any  man  come  to  Me,  and  hate  not  his  father  and 
mother  and  wife  and  children,  yea,  and  his  own  Hfe  also,  he 
cannot  be  My  disciple." 

Faith,  then,  in  its  highest  Pauline  meaning,  is  that  decisive 
act  of  self-surrender  by  which  the  soul  gives  itself  to  Christ, 
by  which  it  enters  the  new  humanity.  And  inasmuch  as  it 
is  only  there  that  God  can  look  upon  a  man  with  satisfac- 
tion, it  is  by  faith  alone,  as  subjective  condition,  that  a  man 
is  justified.  Further,  inasmuch  as  it  is  only  there  that  a 
man  finds  and  takes  the  spirit  of  Christ,  it  is  through  faith, 
in  the  first  instance,  that  he  works  the  works  of  God.  Faith, 
in  a  word,  is  the  one  necessary  subjective  link  in  establishing 
spiritual  union  between  Christ  and  the  soul.  That  once 
established,  everything  is  possible,  for  everything  we  need 
is  to  be  found  in  Christ.  Higher  reaches  of  knowledge 
are  there.  For  in  Christ  we  come  to  know  our  Heavenly 
Father,  not  only  in  a  higher  measure,  but  in  a  different  way, 
in  that  way  of  personal  intercourse  in  which  a  father 
comes  to  know  his  child,  and  a  husband  his  wife. 

Since,  however,  the  intercourse  between  God  and  the 
soul,  in  Christ,  is  far  closer  and  more  inward  than  any 
which  is  brought  about  by  human  relationships,  words 
scarcely  serve  the  Apostle  to  describe  its  uniqueness.  "  I 
bow  my  knees  for  you,"  he  tells  the  Ephesians,  "to  the 
God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  .  .  .  that  ye 
may  be  able  to  comprehend  with  all  saints  what  is  the 
length  and  breadth,  and  depth  and  height,  and  to  know 
the  love  of  Christ,  which  passeth  knowledge,  that  ye  may  be 
filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God."  Again,  vaster  depths  of 
love  are  there.  So  near  is  God  and  so  precious  in  Christ, 
that,  stimulated  by  the  spirit  of  adoption,  we  can  cry  with 
all  filial  confidence,  "  Abba  Father."  So  dear,  again,  is  man 
in  Christ,  so  dear  not  only  in  his  obedience,  but  also  in  his 


86  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

rebellion,  when  as  prodigal  he  is  sinning  and  suffering  in  the 
far  country,  that,  carried  away  on  the  stream  of  Christ's  re- 
deeming impulse,  we  are  ready  to  do  all  things  for  him,  and 
to  suffer  all  things  if  only  we  may  bring  him  home  again. 

All  things  are  thus  possible  in  Christ,  all  knowledge,  all 
love,  all  hope,  all  joy,  all  sympathy,  all  suffering,  all  service. 
And  all  things  are  made  possible,  objectively  through  the 
preparation  of  the  new  humanity,  and  subjectively  through 
the  faith  by  which  we  are  brought  into  union  with  it.  Do 
you  not  see,  then,  how  easily  all  the  apparent  contradictions 
of  the  apostolic  teaching  find  their  harmony  and  reconcilia- 
tion if  only  we  get  to  this  central  point  of  view,  and  throw 
on  them  the  light  of  the  glorious  truth  which  shines  there  ? 

Faith  without  works  of  a  law  must  secure  our  justifica- 
tion, because  it  is  not  the  effort  at  obedience,  but  the 
decisive  act  of  self-surrender,  which  unites  us  to  Christ,  in 
whom  alone  justification  is  to  be  found.  But  faith  also 
must  work  by  love ;  for  w^ho  can  give  up  his  whole  soul  and 
life  to  Christ  without  loving  Him  ;  or  who,  again,  can  sink 
his  will  in  Christ's  without  gaining  that  royal  will  of  self- 
sacrifice  which  the  Master  perfected  and  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
bestows  ?  If,  then,  faith,  by  bringing  us  into  Christ,  must 
fill  us  with  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  it  is  certain  that  that 
spirit  in  turn  must  overflow  in  works  of  love. 

But  let  us  not  forget  the  order  and  true  relation  of  these 
thoughts.  Human  lives  are  like  trees  planted  in  the  soil 
of  nature.  So  long  as  they  abide  in  that  soil,  although  here 
and  there  good  trees  will  be  found  bringing  forth  abundant 
fruit,  yet  in  general  their  product  will  be  scanty  and  poor. 
Before  the  vital  power  of  the  trees  can  be  stimulated  to  its 
utmost  possibilities,  they  must  be  transplanted  into  a  new 
soil ;  the  soil  of  Christ's  heavenly  life.  The  act  of  trans- 
planting is  the  act  of  faith.     This  brings  us  into  the  new 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  8/ 

humanity.  If  now  you  desired  to  account  for  the  increased 
fruitfulness  of  those  trees ;  to  what  would  you  ascribe  it  ? 
Objectively  to  the  better  quality  of  the  soil  (type  of  Christ's 
life),  and  subjectively,  with  regard  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  trees,  to  the  act  of  transplanting  (type  of  our  faith).  In 
other  words,  faith  produces  works,  not  works  faith  ;  faith 
increases  love,  not  the  opposite ;  but  all  alike,  both  faith 
and  work,  and  the  love  by  which  faith  works,  are  dependent 
for  their  efficacy  on  union  with  Christ ;  on  a  Divine  planting 
in  the  soul  of  the  new  humanity. 

All  comparisons  of  this  kind  must  fail  somewhere,  and  I 
am  fully  sensible  that  there  are  aspects  of  the  deep  spiritual 
relations  of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  which  this  rough 
illustration  fails  to  represent.  It  will,  however,  have  answered 
its  purpose  if  it  helps  to  clear  our  thoughts  upon  the  special 
point  under  review,  the  nature  and  office  of  faith.  And, 
observe,  it  is  exactly  at  this  point  that  we  are  able  to  under- 
stand the  depth  of  the  Galatian  fall.  The  Galatians  wished 
to  be  circumcised,  and  to  gain  the  privilege  of  being  Jews 
as  well  as  Christians.  But,  asks  St.  Paul,  do  you  know  the 
meaning  of  what  you  seek  ?  Circumcision  is  the  sign  of 
admission  to  the  Mosaic  covenant.  And  what  are  the 
terms  of  that  covenant  ?  "I  testify  to  every  man,"  says 
the  Apostle,  "  who  is  circumcised,  that  he  is  a  debtor  to 
do  the  whole  law."  To  go  back  into  Judaism  is  to  take 
upon  yourselves  an  obligation  which,  out  of  Christ,  no  man 
is  able  to  discharge.  He  who  would  save  himself  by 
effort,  in  virtue  of  his  own  attempt  to  keep  the  law,  should 
remember  what  is  written :  "  Cursed  is  every  one  that  con- 
tinueth  not  in  all  things  which  are  written  in  the  book  of 
the  law,  to  do  them." 

Now,  if  a  curse  rests  on  every  man  whose  obedience  to 
the  law  is  imperfect,  then  it  assuredly  rests  on  every  one 


88  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

who  seeks  to  earn  salvation  by  obedience.  For  no  human 
being,  be  his  efforts  never  so  strenuous,  can  succeed  in 
rendering  a  perfect  obedience  to  the  law.  But  this  is  not 
the  worst.  Do  you  not  see,  cries  St.  Paul,  that  you  are  not 
only  bringing  yourselves  under  a  curse  by  this  disastrous 
lapse,  but  also  severing  yourselves  from  Christ,  falling  from 
His  grace  ?  "  Behold  I,  Paul,  say  unto  you,  that  if  ye  receive 
circumcision,  Christ  will  profit  you  nothing." 

What  a  whole  worldful  of  meaning  there  lay  in  that 
warning,  our  investigation  of  to-day  must  have  convinced 
us.  For  what  was  the  purpose  of  Christ's  coming  ?  As  we 
have  seen,  it  was  to  create  a  new  bridge  of  communication 
between  earth  and  heaven ;  to  establish  a  humanity  filled 
with  the  richest  gifts  of  Divine  grace,  with  all  the  light  of 
heavenly  truth,  and  all  the  fire  of  heavenly  love.  It  was, 
further,  to  make  this  humanity  accessible  to  man  on  the 
simple  condition  of  faith  ;  a  faith  equally  possible  to  all, 
whether  Jew  or  Gentile,  bond  or  free.  To  supply  these 
means  of  making  men  good  and  happy,  all  the  resources  of 
Divine  mercy  had  been  strained  to  the  uttermost.  The 
Holiest  surrendered  His  Only  Begotten ;  the  Infinite  came 
into  the  limitation  of  human  flesh,  that,  wrestling  there  with 
human  sin,  and  pleading  there  with  human  obduracy,  He 
might  fill  the  world  with  so  radiant  a  light  of  Divine  love 
as  had  never  shone  before  the  eyes  of  immortals. 

And  yet  these  blind  insensate  Galatians  were  acting  as  if 
all  that  were  nothing,  as  if  man  could  do  without  Christ,  as 
if  in  the  old  ground  of  nature,  with  the  word  of  a  law  behind 
him,  man  could  subdue  his  selfish  will  to  live,  and  rise  into 
the  self-denying  will  to  love.  The  new  humanity  gone,  and 
faith,  the  condition  of  union  with  it,  gone,  what  was  left  to 
them  but  the  old  unavailing  struggles,  the  old  miserable 
sense  of  failure  and  condemnation,  the  old  bondage  and 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  89 

curse  and  impotence  of  the  law?  Nay,  it  was  not  only 
stultification  of  themselves,  but  it  was  further  treason  to  the 
world  to  let  go  this  glorious  truth  on  which  they  had  once 
taken  hold.  They  had  entered  into  this  new  union  in 
Christ  between  God  and  man.  They  had  seen,  in  Him 
who  constituted  it,  all  which  the  human  race  needed,  all 
goodness  and  happiness,  all  holiness  and  peace.  They 
had  seen  men  of  every  race,  Jews  and  Gentiles,  entering 
into  this  union,  and  gaining  all  its  blessings  on  the  simple 
condition  of  faith. 

And  yet  these  Galatians,  who  had  seen  all  this,  who  had 
seen  that  the  Gospel  brought  what  all  men  needed,  and 
placed  it  where  all  men  could  reach  it,  were  ready  to  fall 
back  into  the  bondage  of  a  narrow  nationalism  soon  to 
perish,  and  into  the  futile  efforts  of  an  unhelped  nature, 
whose  groans  and  cries  of  baffled  endeavour  filled  all  the 
ages  of  the  past. 

Let  us  pray  that  the  apostolic  warning  may  not  be  lost 
upon  us,  my  friends  :  for  the  danger  of  such  lapses  from 
the  spirit  to  the  letter,  from  the  second  to  the  first  Adam, 
from  the  self-surrender  of  faith  to  the  self-seeking  of  per- 
formance, or  the  self-pleasing  of  an  outward  and  merely 
ceremonial  religion,  is  as  great  to-day  as  it  was  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago.  And  if  we  are  to  escape  such  mis- 
take and  reaction,  it  can  only  be  by  setting  clearly  before 
our  eyes,  and  holding  steadfastly  in  our  hearts,  such 
truths  as  those  which  we  have  been  considering  to-day  ; 
that  all  the  resources  of  the  new  life  are  laid  up  for  us  in 
Christ ;  that  we  can  only  gain  them,  each  for  himself,  by 
the  self-surrender  of  faith,  and  that  they  are  thus  prepared 
for  us,  and  taken  by  us ;  that  through  the  long  conflict  and 
discipline  of  life  they  may  make  us  perfect  at  length,  as 
our  "  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect," 


VI. 

I  ENDEAVOURED  to  show  you  in  my  last  lecture  what  was 
the  central  truth  of  the  Christian  religion.  We  found  it  to 
be  this,  that  Jesus  Christ  had  established  a  new  religious 
synthesis,  a  new  and  closer  and  more  fruitful  union  between 
God  and  man.  The  possibility  of  such  a  union  already 
exists  for  the  whole  world.  Through  His  death  and  resur- 
rection Christ  has  created  a  new  humanity,  filled  with  the 
Divine  Spirit,  and  with  all  the  gifts  and  resources  of  a  new 
life.  This  life  is  sufficient  for  the  regeneration  of  all,  and 
is  freely  offered  to  all. 

"  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself, 
not  imputing  their  trespasses  to  them."  In  God's  loving 
purpose,  the  whole  world  is  already  reconciled  to  Him  in 
Jesus  Christ.  But  man  is  free.  He  may  refuse  the  life 
and  grace  offered  to  him  in  Christ.  And,  therefore,  to  the 
Apostle's  announcement  of  God's  completed  reconciliation 
he  has  to  add  the  exhortation,  "  Be  ye  therefore  reconciled 
to  God." 

Now,  by  what  act  of  his  own  can  man  freely  accept  this 
life  of  reconciliation  ?  We  found  that  it  was  by  that  act 
of  complete  self-surrender  which  we  call  faith.  Let  a  man 
believe  in  Christ,  and  he  passes  into  the  new  humanity, 
and  is  regarded  and  treated  by  God  as  forming  part  of  it. 
But  now  the  question  may  be  asked.  What  occasioned  the 
need  for  this  new  religious  synthesis  ?  Why  was  it  neces- 
sary that  Christ  should  come  in  our  flesh  ?  that  He  should 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  Qt 

suffer  and  die  and  rise  again,  and  so  pass  into  His  glory  ? 
We  have  already  reached  a  satisfactory  answer  to  this 
question  from  the  human  side.  The  creative  force  of  the 
new  humanity  was  needed  by  man  because  of  his  incapacity, 
without  Divine  aid,  to  make  the  will  to  love  triumph  over 
the  will  to  live. 

But  is  this  all  ?  Have  we  exhausted  the  reasons  for  the 
creation  of  this  new  relation  in  Christ  when  we  have  shown 
man's  need  of  it  ?  Did  not  a  necessity  for  it  exist  also  on 
the  Divine  side?  Could  God  have  entered  'into  reconcilia- 
tion with  man  without  it  ?  If  the  Divine  love  provided 
this  new  humanity,  did  not  the  Divine  justice  also  demand 
it  ?  And,  if  so,  why  ?  This  is  the  most  difficult  question 
in  theology.  It  is  the  one  which  has  been  most  largely 
treated,  and  most  fiercely  debated.  It  is  the  one  upon 
which  agreement,  or  even  general  satisfaction,  seems  to  be 
most  hopeless.  And  yet  it  is  the  one  upon  which,  above 
all  others,  it  is  important  that  we  should  come  to  some 
approximately  satisfactory  conclusion. 

So  many  things  have  been  said  upon  this  subject  by 
theologians,  which  seem  to  dishonour  God,  and  to  outrage 
the  moral  sense  of  good  men,  that  if,  on  the  authority  of 
Holy  Scripture,  we  could  put  these  things  aside  it  would  do 
more  perhaps  than  anything  else  to  dispel  unwelcome  doubts, 
and  to  make  faith  possible  to  those  who  ask  nothing  better 
than  that  they  may  be  able  to  believe.  But  what  possible 
hope  is  there  of  a  successful  issue  to  an  investigation  which 
has  been  made  a  hundred  times  with  the  too  familiar 
results  of  failure,  dissatisfaction,  and  disagreement  ?  None 
whatever,  I  answer,  unless  we  can  discover  a  better  method 
of  inquiry.  What  changed  the  whole  course  of  scientific 
study  after  Bacon  ?  What  banished  from  such  study,  as 
by  magic,  the  old  bitterness,  unfruitfulness,  and  stagnation  ? 


92  DANGERS    OF    THE   ArOSTOLIC    ACE. 

The  discovery  of  a  new  method  of  study,  the  substitution 
of  the  inductive  for  the  deductive  method  of  investigation. 

May  we  not  hope,  then,  for  better  results  in  the  inquiry 
which  we  undertake  to-day,  if  only  we  adopt  a  more  reason- 
able method  of  investigation  ? 

It  has  been  too  common  a  practice  in  the  past  to  begin 
by  fastening  on  particular  phrases  of  metaphors  in  the 
writings  of  St.  Paul,  to  proceed  by  giving  to  those  phrases 
an  arbitrary  meaning,  and  then  to  conclude  by  deducing 
from  such  meanings  a  number  of  apparently  necessary 
consequences.  Let  me  give  an  example  of  what  I  mean. 
As  early  as  the  days  of  Irenoeus  and  Origen  men  fastened 
upon  the  Scriptural  statement  that  Christ  was  our  ransom. 
Now,  a  ransom  is  the  price  paid  for  the  liberation  of  a 
slave.  Man,  then,  who  needed  a  ransom  was  in"  slavery  to 
some  one.  To  whom  then  ?  Who  was  the  slave-master  ? 
Clearly,  it  was  urged,  the  devil.  To  the  devil,  then,  the 
ransom  must  be  paid.  God,  who  was  just,  could  not  deprive 
him  of  his  right  without  giving  him  an  equivalent. 

But  where  could  an  equivalent  be  found  for  all  the  souls 
of  sinful  men  whom  the  devil  held  in  bondage?  God 
offered  as  the  equivalent  His  Only  Begotten  Son.  The 
devil  joyfully  accepted  the  offer,  and  Christ  was  given  up  to 
him  in  death.  But  lo !  in  the  moment  of  his  triumph  he 
discovered  that  he  had  been  the  victim  of  an  illusion.  He 
had  seized  upon  God,  and  found  himself  in  the  grasp  of  the 
Omnipotent.  He  could  not  keep  his  prey.  Christ  rent 
the  bars  of  death  and  hell,  spoiled  the  spoiler,  and  led 
captivity  captive.  It  might  have  been  thought,  perhaps, 
that  the  idea  of  God's  practising  a  fraud  upon  the  evil  one 
would  have  checked  this  repulsive  and  audacious  speculation. 
But  no  such  thing.  These  early  theologians  rather  rejoiced 
in  the  thought  that  the  arch-deceiver  had  been  deceived. 


THE    GALATIAN    LAl'SE.  93 

They  cried  exultingly  that  the  flesh  of  Christ  had  been  the 
bait,  and  when  the  great  dragon  took  it  he  found  himself 
caught  on  the  hook  of  Christ's  Divinity. 

We  recoil  from  such  expressions  now.  And  since  Anselm 
pointed  out  that  the  affirmation  of  any  right  in  one  of  God's 
creatures  to  hold  others  of  His  creatures  in  bondage  was  an 
insult  to  the  Divine  Sovereignty,  the  \vhole  theory  has  been 
gradually  abandoned.  Not  in  vain,  however,  was  it  adopted 
and  held  as  an  orthodox  explanation  by  the  Christian  Fathers 
for  a  thousand  years,  if  we  only  learn  the  two  great  lessons 
which  it  should  teach  us  :  first,  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  may  be  true,  and  yet  an  orthodox  explanation 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  Atonement  was  made  may  be 
untrue  ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  language  of  the  Apostles 
is  not  that  of  scientific  exposition,  but  of  popular  exhor- 
tation, that  figures  of  speech  are  not  to  be  taken  for  abstract 
statements  nor  metaphors  for  arguments. 

Let  me  endeavour  to  enforce  this  latter  caution  by  a 
further  consideration  of  the  character  of  the  writings  cf 
St.  Paul. 

Let  us  remember,  in  the  first  place,  that  those  writings 
are  familiar  letters,  occasioned  by  special  emergencies,  deal- 
ing with  the  difficulties  of  special  Churches,  and  thrown  off 
for  the  most  part  in  the  heat  of  anxiety  or  indignation. 
How,  then,  can  we  expect  in  them  scientific  language,  terms 
carefully  chosen,  accurately  defined,  and  employed  with  a 
uniformity  of  meaning?  Far  more  reasonably  should  we 
anticipate  what  we  find,  vigorous  figurative  language,  fired 
by  deep  feeling,  and  addressed  rather  to  the  heart  than  to 
the  understanding. 

Again,  remembering  the  education  and  history  of  St.  Paul, 
we  should  surely  expect  him  to  employ  largely  the  terms, 
figures,  and  incidents  of  the  Old  Testament.     A  Christian 


94  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

man  who  had  been  brought  up  as  a  Jew,  and  who  had 
therefore  been  taught  from  his  earh"est  days  to  drape  his 
spiritual  and  ethical  ideas  in  the  ritual  and  ceremonial 
figures  of  the  law,  would  almost  feel  compelled  to  carry  over 
his  customary  speech  into  that  world  of  new  thoughts  which 
had  been  created  by  Christianity.  In  like  manner  the 
prophets  of  Israel  were  compelled  to  seek  their  pictures  of 
the  world's  spiritual  future  among  the  incidents  of  Israelitish 
history.  Where  else  could  they  have  obtained  the  drapery 
of  their  awful  visions  ?  The  Church  of  the  future  was 
accordingly  represented  by  them  as  Israel,  the  Church  of 
the  present;  while  the  enemies  of  that  Church  were  conceived 
under  the  forms  of  Babylon,  Edom,  or  Egypt,  the  actual 
and  well-known  foes  of  Israel. 

Now,  how  were  these  passages  to  be  interpreted  afier  the 
kingdom  of  God  had  been  actually  established  by  Jesus 
Christ  ?  Were  the  figures  to  be  illuminated  by  the  light  of 
the  fact  ?  or  was  the  fact  to  be  determined  by  the  form  of 
the  figures  ?  Theological  students  know  that  two  schools  of 
prophetic  interpretation  were  developed  out  of  this  question, 
the  one  holding  that  Israel  is  always  the  literal  Israel, 
and  Babylon  the  actual  city  on  the  Euphrates ;  the  other 
(that  which  at  the  present  day  is  everywhere  prevailing), 
that  Israel  is  but  the  Church  of  God,  and  Babylon  the 
spiritual  enemy  of  that  Church.  The  one  subordinates  the 
fact  to  the  form ;  the  other  explains  the  form  by  the  fact. 

Now,  why  is  the  latter  school  everywhere  prevailing  at 
the  present  day  ?  Because  it  is  seen  that  its  critical  basis 
is  the  more  reasonable ;  that  if  the  prophets  were  driven 
from  the  nature  of  the  case  to  seek  the  drapery  of  their 
visions  from  history,  that  mere  drapery  ought  not  to  be 
allowed  to  determine  the  meaning  of  the  visions.  We 
should   surely  adopt  this  same  reasonable   canon   in  our 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  95 

interpretation  of  the  sacrificial  and  ceremonial  language  of 
St.  Paul.  The  circumstances  of  the  Apostle's  past  life 
compelled  him  to  use  such  language.  It  was  the  historically 
determined  garb  of  his  thought.  How  unreasonable,  then, 
to  suppose  that  the  earlier  meaning  of  this  language  is  to 
be  allowed  to  impose  itself  on  the  vaster  thoughts  and 
deeper  feelings  which  the  Apostle  cast  into  these  ancient 
moulds  ! 

I  tried  to  show  you  in  my  last  lecture  that  we  know  what 
was  the  master-thought  of  the  apostle.  It  stands  out  clearly 
in  its  own  light.  Let  us  take  it  with  us  then,  and  allow 
it  largely  to  determine  for  us  the  new  Christian  sense  in 
which  the  apostle  employed  the  ancient  sacrificial  terms,  or 
referred  to  imperfect  shadows  of  the  good  things  to  come. 

Well  has  it  been  said  by  Archdeacon  Farrar,  respecting 
St.  Paul's  familiar  application  of  the  history  of  Abraham  : 
"  The  Apostle  did  not  derive  his  views  from  these  con- 
siderations, but  discovered  the  truths  revealed  to  him  in 
passages  which,  until  he  thus  applied  them,  would  not 
have  been  seen  to  involve  this  deeper  significance." 

There  was  still  another  special  reason  (brought  out 
clearly  by  the  circumstances  of  the  Galatian  lapse)  for 
St.  Paul's  extensive  employment  of  Jewish  ideas  and 
phraseology.  Not  only  were  those  forms  of  expression 
natural  to  him,  as  an  Israelite  and  a  student  of  the  Jewish 
schools,  but  they  were  further  forced  upon  him  by  the 
conflicts  of  his  own  age.  It  might  seem  strange  at  first 
sight  that  St.  Paul  should  so  anxiously  seek  support  for 
his  gospel  in  the  events  and  shadows  of  the  Old  Testament. 
He  says  that  law  cannot  save,  that  when  opposed  by  the 
selfish  impulses  of  the  flesh  it  becomes  the  strength  of  sin, 
that  it  was  added  because  of  transgressions,  put  in  between 
the  two  covenants  of  promise  because  of  the  spiritual  back- 


g6  DANGERS   OF    THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

wardness  of  the  Jewish  people  ;  because,  Hke  children,  they 
needed  a  system  of  particular  rules,  and  could  not  live  on 
general  principles  like  those  of  mature  age.  The  highest 
office  which  he  assigns  to  the  law  is  that  of  a  pedagogue  to 
bring  us  to  Christ.  Why,  then,  does  he  not  plant  himself 
firmly  and  independently  on  that  which  is  of  eternal  sig- 
nificance, and  draw  all  promise  and  precept  from  that? 
Specially,  why  does  he  not  follow  this  method  when  writing 
to  Gentiles  ? 

We  can  understand  why  a  writer  like  the  author  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  should  strive  to  show  to 
Hebrew  Christians  how  Christ  fulfilled  all  the  shadowy 
fore-intimations  of  the  law.  But  what  need  was  there 
for  St.  Paul,  writing  to  Gentile  Christians  like  those  of 
Corinth  and  Galatia,  to  adopt  this  course  ?  The  history 
of  the  Galatian  lapse  gives  the  answer  to  that  question. 
Who  were  they  who,  creeping  into  Gentile  Churches  in  the 
absence  of  their  great  Founder,  tried  to  draw  them  away 
from  Christ  ?  They  were  Christian  Judaizers,  who  spoke 
in  the  name  of  law  and  circumcision.  It  was  necessary, 
therefore,  for  the  Apostle  to  meet  these  ritualists  on  their 
own  ground,  and  to  show  from  the  law  itself  that  their 
doctrines  were  false  and  pernicious. 

How  strikingly  this  motive  comes  out  in  the  sudden 
question  to  the  Galatians,  "Tell  me,  ye  that  desire  to  be 
under  the  law^,  do  ye  not  hear  the  law  ?  "  And  then  he 
introduces  the  allegory  of  the  sons  of  the  bondwoman  and 
of  the  free.  We  see,  then,  that  St.  Paul  was  driven  not  less 
by  the  circumstances  of  the  time  than  by  his  own  educa- 
tion and  ordinary  habit  of  thought  into  a  large  use  of  Old 
Testament  figures  and  phrases.  He  sought  out  points  of 
comparison.  He  seized  upon  analogies,  however  slight, 
and  sometimes  found  them  in  correspondences  so  remote 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  97 

as  to  appear  to  us  almost  trifling.  For  all  these  reasons 
it  is  obviously  unwise  to  make  too  much  of  sacrificial  or 
ceremonial  phraseology  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul.  Let 
us  rather  interpret  the  less  certain  by  the  more  certain, 
the  figure  by  the  fact,  the  metaphor  by  the  thought  which 
takes  form  in  it. 

Carrying  with  us  this  great  principle  of  interpretation,  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  may  be  less  difficult  than  many  imagine 
to  come  to  reasonable  conclusions  about  several  disputed 
points  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  It  is  certain  that 
in  the  Pauline  theology  Christ's  death  is  the  event  which 
is  of  most  decisive  importance  in  connection  with  the 
remission  of  sins.  "  Christ  died  for  the  ungodly,"  says  the 
Apostle.  And  again  :  "  He  died  for  our  sins  ; "  "  Having 
made  peace  through  the  blood  of  His  cross ; "  "I  deter- 
mined to  know  nothing  among  you  but  Jesus  Christ,  and 
Him  crucified."  Now,  what  gave  this  decisive  importance 
to  the  death  of  Christ?  It  has  commonly  been  said, 
Christ's  vicarious  suffering,  in  which  He  bore  the  punish- 
ment due  to  the  sins  of  all  the  world.  This  is  commonly 
said  and  taught,  but  I  am  unable  to  find  anything  about  it 
in  Holy  Scripture.  The  righteous  God  demands  righteous- 
ness, not  punishment.  Jesus  is  the  Lord  our  righteousness, 
not  the  Lord  our  punishment.  What  God  provides  for  us 
is  the  righteousness  of  God,  not  the  punishment  of  Christ. 
What  Christ  bears  for  us  is  not  our  punishment,  but  "  our 
sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree."  "  He  hath  made  Him 
to  be  sin  [not  punishment]  for  us." 

Well,  but  it  is  asked.  What  is  the  meaning  of  sin  here  ? 
Surely  it  will  not  be  held  that  the  sinless  Lord  was  sinful  ? 
And  if  not,  how  can  He  in  any  way  bear  our  sin  except 
by  bearing  our  punishment  ?  That  is  exactly  how  all 
unscriptural  dogmatism  creeps  in.     Some  particular  phrase 

7 


98  DANGERS    OF    THE    ArOSTOLIC    AGE. 

is  taken,  and  then,  an  uncertain  and  unauthorized  inference 
having  been  drawn  from  it,  this  inference  in  turn  is  made 
the  basis  of  an  endless  number  of  other  inferences.  The 
thing  to  be  called  in  question  is  the  first  inference  ;  and 
here  the  first  inference  that  sin  means  punishment  seems 
to  me  to  be  utterly  unauthorized.  Christ  is  indeed  said 
by  the  Apostle  to  have  been  made  a  curse  for  us  ;  but  in 
what  sense  ?  Was  it  because  God,  attributing  to  Him  the 
guilt  of  all  human  sin,  pronounced  Him  accursed  on  the 
cross  ?  Nothing  can  be  further  from  the  Apostle's  thought. 
How  could  God  hate  and  curse  His  Son,  when  that  Son's 
will  was  most  humbly  bowed  in  obedience  to  His  own  ? 
If  there  can  be  variations  in  a  love  which  is  Divine,  surely 
the  moment  of  Christ's  death  must  have  been  that  at  which 
God  loved  Him  most  dearly. 

Nor  is  the  Apostle's  statement  at  all  inconsistent  with 
this  view.  For  how  does  St.  Paul  sustain  his  assertion  that 
Jesus  was  made  a  curse  for  us  ?  By  the  free  quotation  from 
the  Old  Testament  of  the  words,  "  Cursed  is  every  one  who 
hangeth  on  a  tree."  The  manner  of  our  Lord's  death 
brought  Him  into  the  position  described  in  these  words. 
In  carrying  out  the  will  of  His  Father,  and  perfecting  His 
own  self-sacrifice,  our  Lord  came,  on  our  behalf,  into  the 
position  of  one  ceremonially  accursed.  He  may,  therefore, 
be  said  to  have  been  made  a  curse  for  us.  This,  and 
this  only,  is  involved  in  the  Apostle's  words.  I  believe, 
in  short,  that  the  conception  of  our  Lord's  vicarious 
punishment,  with  all  its  wide-branching  and  repulsive 
consequences,  has  been  introduced  into  the  Bible  by  mere 
theorists. 

Mr.  Heard  has  very  ingeniously  shown,  in  his  "  Old  and 
New  Theology,"  that  this  theory  has  passed  through  three 
Btages,  what  one  may  call  its  stone  age,  its  bronze  age,  and 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  99 

its  iron  age  ;  and  that  in  each  it  has  expressed  the  views  of 
a  corresponding  stage  in  the  advance  of  legal  science. 

At  first  it  is  purely  vindictive ;  the  expression  of  the  lex 
talionis.  God  has  been  injured,  and  He  will  have  vengeance. 
Sin  can  only  be  washed  out  in  blood ;  and  blood  God  will 
have,  if  not  that  of  the  offender,  then  that  of  some  other. 

In  the  second  stage  this  theory  assumes  what  may  be 
called  a  legal  form.  The  offence  is  conceived  of  as  com- 
mitted rather  against  a  law  than  against  a  person,  and  it  is 
the  law  which  must  have  satisfaction.  The  sin  is  supposed 
to  be'of  infinite  malignancy,  and  the  law  therefore  demands 
a  punishment  of  infinite  value. 

But,  once  more,  the  law  will  be  sufficiently  honoured  if 
that  punishment  fall  on  one  whose  sufferings  will  be  by 
number  or  by  weight  an  equivalent  for  the  offence.  Nowa- 
days, however,  lawyers  have  got  beyond  that  second  stage 
of  the  legal  conception  of  punishment  upon  which  our 
theory  planted  itself.  Beccaria  showed  them  that  it  was 
not  so  much  the  severity  as  the  certainty  of  punishment 
which  w^as  deterrent,  and  accordingly  legal  enactments  aim 
now  rather  at  reformation  than  retribution.  The  wrong- 
doer's crime  is  before  all  things  against  himself;  and  it  is 
not  only  for  the  sake  of  society,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  the 
criminal,  that  he  must  be  punished.  Hence,  as  Mr.  Heard 
shows,  there  has  arisen  a  corresponding  modification  in 
the  theory  of  atonement  which  we  have  been  examining. 
Nothing  of  all  this  is  Scriptural.  It  is  brought  in  wholly 
from  legal  science. 

As  Reuss  .has,^said,  ".There  is  not  a  word  of  all  this 
weighing  and  calculating  scheme  to  be  found  in  the  writings 
of  St.  Paul."  And,  I  may  add,  with  the  abandonment  of 
the  idea  that  Jesus  bore  our  sins,  by  bearing  their  punish- 
ment,  all   these    elaborate   theories,    with   their   unethical 


100  DANGERS   OF   THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

complexities,  fall  away.  But  how,  then,  it  may  be  asked, 
are  we  to  determine  the  meaning  of  the  phrase,  "  He  bore 
our  sins "  ?  Partly,  I  answer,  by  Scriptural  usage,  and 
partly  by  throwing  on  this  difficulty  the  light  of  the  Gospel's 
central  truth.  As  Dr.  Bushnell  has  pointed  out,  there  is  a 
passage  in  Matt.  viii.  which  might  have  been  written  to 
give  the  exact  iisus  loqiietidi  of  sacrificial  language  in  the 
New  Testament.  Our  Saviour  passed  a  certain  Sabbath 
day  at  Capernaum  in  healing  and  teaching.  His  fatigue  of 
body  and  mind  w^as  excessive,  and  referring  to  this  the 
evangelist  says,  "  Ail  this  was  done  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  by  Isaiah  the  prophet :  Himself  took  our 
infirmities  and  bore  our  sicknesses." 

Now  this  quotation  from  the  Old  Testament  is  of  decisive 
importance  for  two  reasons.  It  is,  first,  a  quotation  from 
Isa.  liii.,  the  common  storehouse  of  such  quotations ;  and, 
secondly,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  sense  in  which  the 
evangelist  applied  it  to  our  Lord's  labours.  How  did  the 
Lord  Jesus  bear  the  sicknesses  and  infirmities  of  those  whom 
He  healed  ?  He  certainly  did  not  bear  them  literally, 
becoming  sick  for  the  sick  and  lame  for  the  lame  ;  and  He 
as  certainly  did  not  bear  them  punitively,  as  undergoing 
penalties  which  those  sicknesses  deserved  or  betokened. 
Obviously  He  bore  the  sicknesses  of  others  in  the  personal 
sufferings  which  His  enterprise  of  healing  brought  on  Him- 
self. It  involved  weariness  of  body,  and  the  pain  of  pro- 
tracted sympathy,  and  the  natural  disgust  inspired  by  the 
loathsome  consequences  of  disease. 

And  what  possible  reason,  let  me  ask,  can  there  be  for 
adopting  any  other  than  the  evangelical  interpretation  of 
vicarious  phraseology,  when  the  disease  healed  is  moral  and 
not  physical  ?  The  suffering  of  the  healer  is  in  both  cases 
that  involved  in  the  effort  of  healing.     Only  in  the  case  of 


THE    GALATIxVN    LAPSE.  lOI 

moral  disease  it  is  evident  that  this  suffering  must  be  greater. 
A  man  labouring  under  a  physical  disease  is  always  willing 
to  be  healed.  But  the  sinner  commonly  clings  to  his  sin, 
and  is  unwilling  to  abandon  it.  He,  therefore,  who  is 
determined  to  save  him  against  his  will,  who,  entering  with 
earnestness  on  the  work  of  redemption,  determines  to  give 
the  sinner  no  rest  in  his  iniquity,  must  look  for  the  most 
determined  and  envenomed  opposition,  must  prepare  him- 
self for  hatred,  denunciation,  scorn,  and  even  death.  This, 
however,  is  a  merely  formal  distinction.  It  does  not  touch 
the  essence  of  the  matter.  In  the  latter  case,  not  less  than 
in  the  former,  the  deliverer's  suffering  comes,  not  from  the 
literal  assumption  of  the  disease  or  its  consequences,  but 
only  from  the  natural  results  of  his  effort  to  banish  it.  The 
suffering  in  this  latter  case  is  certainly  vicarious.  It  would 
never  have  been  experienced  but  for  the  sufferer's  efforts 
on  behalf  of  others.  And  yet  is  it  not  the  less  a  perfectly 
natural  and  inevitable  jesult  of  those  efforts  ? 

Why  should  we  not  say  at  once,  then,  that  the  vicarious 
suffering  of  the  Lord  Jesus  was  necessitated  by  the  great 
purpose  which  brought  Him  into  the  world  ?  the  purpose, 
that  is,  to  deliver  man  from  his  sin.  Nay ;  is  not  this 
causative  connection  between  our  Lord's  saving  purpose  and 
His  sufferings  distinctly  marked  in  most  of  those  passages  to 
which  a  different  interpretation  has  been  given  ?  Why  did 
our  Lord  come  into  the  world?  "He  was  manifested," 
says  St.  John,  "  to  take  away  our  sins."  Why  was  He 
called  Jesus  ?  "  Because  He  should  save  His  people  from 
their  sins."  Why  was  He  made  sin  for  us  who  knew  no 
sin?  "That  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  Him."  Why  did  He  die  for  us  ?  "  That  they  which 
live  should  not  henceforth  live  to  themselves,  but  to  Him 
who  died  for  them  and  rose  again." 


102  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Here  in  every  case  it  is  declared  that  the  final  purpose 
was  the  deliverance  of  man  from  sin.  Jesus  was  humbled, 
and  He  suffered,  not  to  bear  our  punishment,  but  to  take 
away  our  sins,  to  make  us  holy  as  He  is  holy.  Christ  was 
the  Lamb  of  God,  because  He  was  consecrated  and  set 
apart  to  this  redeeming  work ;  and  He  became  that  in 
reality,  which  all  the  lambs  of  the  sacrificial  system  dimly 
represented,  because  He  did  that  which  they  could  only 
dumbly  declare  ought  to  be  done  :  "  He  took  away  the  sins 
of  the  world." 

Here  the  central  thought  of  our  faith  helps  us.  It  shows 
us  how  this  was  done.  In  our  Lord's  great  enterprise  of 
deliverance.  He  was  called  upon  to  combat  sin  in  its  utter- 
most intensity.  As  God's  enemy  and  man's  destroyer.  He 
pursued  it  through  every  disguise  of  pleasure  or  hypo- 
crisy, felt  all  its  horror  and  malignity,  resisted  all  its  seduc- 
tion, defied  all  its  opposition,  and  finally  triumphed  over 
it  in  death.  Thus  in  His  own  person  He  established  a 
humanity  free  from  sin  and  filled  with  the  spirit  of  holiness. 

Into  this  new  humanity  every  sinner  can  enter  by  faith ; 
and  upon  so  entering  it  he  receives  that  almighty  victorious 
spirit  of  Christ  which  takes  away  sin  in  himself.  Is  not 
this  precisely  the  experience  of  those  who  have  passed  by 
faith  into  union  with  Christ  ?  When  they  first  gained 
faith's  mighty  guerdon,  did  they  not  feel  a  perfect  hatred 
of  sin,  a  joyful  love  of  holiness,  a  passionate  affection  for 
sinners,  and,  if  possible,  a  still  more  passionate  desire  to 
deliver  them  from  their  sins  ?  And  what  if  the  flood-tide 
of  that  high  experience  ebbed  again?  It  once  rose  so 
high,  it  once  touched  the  highest  cliffs  of  thought  and 
feeling  ;  we  saw  it  there  in  all  its  potency  and  all  its  possi- 
bilities, a  prophecy  of  victory,  a  foretaste  of  heaven. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  surely  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles  there 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  IO3 

is  something  more  than  the  natural  and  necessary  conse- 
quences of  Christ's  enterprise  of  dehverance,  and  of  the 
sinner's  appropriation  by  faith  of  the  results  of  that  deliver- 
ance. Do  we  not  read  of  imputation,  of  God's  counting  a 
man  to  be  what  he  is  not  ?  Do  we  not  find  it  said  that 
Adam's  sinful  acts  are  imputed  to  his  posterity,  and  that  on 
the  contrary  Christ's  righteous  acts  are  imputed  to  those 
who  believe  on  Him  ? 

Again,  I  must  say  that  I  find  nothing  of  the  kind  in  the 
New  Testament.  Long  ago,  in  his  clear  and  convincing 
essay  on  this  subject,  Archbishop  Whately  observed :  "  It 
is  not  going  too  far  to  say  that  the  whole  system  is  made  to 
rest  on  a  particular  interpretation  of  one  text ;  "  which  inter- 
pretation he  proceeds  to  show  is  untenable.  But  surely,  it 
will  be  urged,  you  admit  the  fact  of  imputation  in  some 
sense  ?  Of  course  I  do,  and  so  must  every  sober  interpreter 
of  Scripture,  when  he  finds  St.  Paul  using  the  word  no  less 
than  eleven  times  in  one  chapter,  Rom.  iv. 

But  what  is  it,  let  me  ask,  which  is  there  said  to  be 
imputed  for  righteousness  ?  Is  it  the  righteous  deeds  or 
death  of  Christ  ?  Nothing  of  the  kind.  It  is  the  faith  of 
Abraham,  and  the  faith  of  every  sinner  who,  like  Abraham, 
believed  in  God.  There  is  no  fiction  here ;  no  impossible 
transfer  of  the  acts  of  one  moral  being  to  the  account  of 
another;  but  simply  the  counting  of  a  certain  kind  of  act 
to  be  more  than  it  seems.  Why  this  imputation  is  made, 
and  how  it  is  possible  for  mercy  to  make  it,  will,  however, 
appear  more  clearly  by  dwelling  for  a  moment  on  St.  Paul's 
comparison  between  Adam  and  Christ.  We  are  said  by 
the  Apostle  to  inherit  Adam's  nature,  with  the  sinful  im- 
pulses and  mortal  consequences  contained  therein.  And 
surely  this  is  a  fact.  Instead  of  talking  about  Adam  as 
St.   Paul   did,  and  in  that  age  must  have  done,  with  the 


104  DANGERS    OF    THE    ArOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Bible  in  his  hand,  we  talk  about  an  original  humanity 
existing  on  the  earth,  ages  before  the  Scriptural  chronology 
commences. 

But  does  that  alter  the  spiritual  fact  on  which  St.  Paul 
bases  his  teaching?  Put  original  humanity  for  Adam,  if 
you  will,  and  is  it  not  still  true  that  every  living  man 
has  inherited  from  that  original  humanity  a  preponderating 
tendency  of  the  selfish  will,  that  this  evil  will  appears  in 
all  with  the  dawn  of  consciousness,  and  that  it  cannot  be 
subdued  by  any  mere  law  or  theory  which  condemns  it  ? 

Again,  is  it  not  the  experience  of  all  believers  in  Christ 
that  when  they  come  into  union  with  Him  by  faith  they  get 
the  power  to  subdue  that  selfish  will,  and  to  give  ascendency 
to  the  will  to  love  ?  Does  not  Christ  become  to  them  more 
and  more,  as  life  goes  on,  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  ? 
And  are  we  not  assured  that  this  same  life  of  Christ  is 
equally  available  for  all  men?  If  so,  then  is  it  not  the 
simple  result  of  human  and  believing  experience  that  in 
Adam,  or  our  far-away  forefather,  all  die ;  and  that  in  Christ, 
exactly  in  the  same  way,  all  who  will  are  made  alive  ?  That 
from  the  first  Adam  we  get  the  will  to  live,  and  from  the 
Second  Adam  the  will  to  love  ? 

What,  then,  in  these  circumstances,  is  meant,  let  us  ask, 
by  imputation,  by  God's  counting  that  to  exist  in  the 
believer  which  as  yet  is  not?  Why  does  St.  Paul  say  that 
Abraham's  faith  was  reckoned  to  him  for  righteousness,  and 
most  generally  that  "the  righteousness  of  God  is  to  all 
and  upon  all  them  that  believe  "  ?  Does  not  the  central 
truth  of  our  faith,  brought  out  so  clearly  by  the  comparison 
of  the  first  and  Second  Adam,  give  us  here  again  a  clear 
and  satisfactory  answer  ?  Abraham  by  faith  came  into  that 
great  general  synthesis  of  religion,  into  that  union  with  God, 
in  which  a  man  Hves  by  God's  Spirit;  and  thus  by  his  faith 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  I05 

he  gained  the  germ  and  potency  of  a  righteousness  not  yet 
perfectly  realised  in  him.  God  then,  in  His  mercy,  counts 
the  beginning  for  the  completion,  the  germ  for  the  fruit 
which  lies  wrapped  up  within  it.  Much  more  then  is  this 
true  of  those  who  have  entered  into  the  new  and  richer 
union  which  faith  establishes  between  the  soul  and  Christ. 

Those  who  have  entered  into  that  union  have  gained  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  and  in  that  spirit  the  potency  of  all  its  fruits. 
God  then  sees  those  fruits  in  their  germ,  and  counts  the 
germ  for  the  fruit,  beholds,  in  a  word,  the  completed 
results  of  a  righteous  life  in  that  which  carries  those  re- 
sults in  its  bosom.  There  is  no  fictitious  and  impossible 
transfer  here  of  the  acts  of  one  to  another,  but  simply  the 
merciful  judgment  that  a  result  exists  which  only  exists  in 
potency.  That  is  how  mercy  judges  in  us,  when  it  forgives 
an  offender  on  his  repentance.  It  sees  in  his  change  of 
mind  the  power  and  promise  of  a  future  change  of  life,  and 
treats  him  as  if  that  change  were  realized.  This  is  the 
imputation  of  God.  God  imputes  the  result,  righteousness, 
to  that  faith  which,  by  uniting  us  to  Christ,  and  making  us 
partakers  of  His  Spirit,  anticipates  and  secures  that  result. 

Once  more,  however,  it  may  be  objected,  if  this  be 
the  meaning  of  imputation,  why  does  the  death  of  Christ 
occupy  so  prominent  a  position  in  connection  with  the 
remission  of  sins  ?  Surely  if  remission  depends  upon  union 
with  Christ,  it  would  be  more  natural  to  connect  this  result 
objectively  with  Christ's  resurrection,  that  event  by  which 
He  passed  into  the  spiritual  world,  where  alone  faith  can 
unite  us  with  Him.  That  is  a  natural  question,  and  it 
demands  and  deserves  a  satisfactory  answer.  Nor  is  it 
difficult  again  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  great  central 
doctrine  of  our  faith  to  give  it  such  an  answer.  It  was  only 
by  His  death  that  Christ  proved  His  will  to  deliver  us  to  be 


I06  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

the  perfect  loving  will  of  His  heavenly  Father.  Before  death, 
even  the  moment  before,  it  was  still  possible  that  He 
might  come  short  of  the  perfect  redeeming  love  of  God. 
By  temptation  or  by  oppression  He  might  still  have  been 
turned  aside  from  His  task,  might  still  have  been  proved 
less  than  the  perfect  redeemer  of  man. 

Never  say  that  a  man  is  perfectly  good  till  he  dies  is  the 
proverb  of  worldly  wisdom.  He  may  falter  and  fall  even 
on  the  brink  of  the  grave.  He  is  not  thoroughly  proved 
till  his  whole  course  is  run.  ,  That  is  why  the  friends  of 
Gordon  glory  in  his  martyr's  death.  His  course  is  vic- 
toriously finished ;  his  glorious  life  of  self-sacrifice  is  made 
circular  and  complete.  It  can  never  be  made  less  than 
beautiful  and  great.  So  also,  by  our  Saviour's  death,  with 
a  prayer  for  His  murderers  on  His  lips,  He  has  fully  proved 
Himself  the  perfect  reflection  of  God's  love,  the  perfect 
Deliverer  of  man. 

Once  more,  by  His  death,  Christ  not  only  perfected  the 
past  of  redeeming  effort,  but  also  prepared  the  future  of 
redeeming  victory.  This  view  has  special  importance  in 
connection  with  the  Pauline  gospel.  For  this  gospel  had 
little  to  do  with  what  went  before  the  death  of  the  Redeemer. 
The  Christ  whom  St.  Paul  preached  was  the  risen  and 
glorified  Christ.  The  salvation  which  he  proclaimed  de- 
pended on  the  new  life  of  Him  who  had  passed  to  His 
glory.  The  Apostle  declared  that  even  if  he  had  known 
Christ  after  the  flesh,  henceforth  he  would  know  Him  no 
more. 

To  St.  Paul,  then,  Christ's  death  was  just  as  much  the 
necessary  introduction  to  the  ministry  of  the  Spirit,  as  the 
baptism  in  Jordan  had  been  to  the  ministry  of  the  flesh. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  finished  and  completed  Christ's  personal 
work  on  earth.  His  work  of  preparation ;  and,  on  the  other, 


THE    GALATIAN    LAPSE.  10/ 

it  introduced  and  made  possible  His  work  of  intercession 
before  God,  and  of  regeneration  in  the  human  soul.  Here 
was  its  advantage  as  a  central  fact  over  the  Resurrection. 
It  combined  the  work  of  the  past  and  the  future.  It 
finished  the  former,  while  it  introduced  the  latter ;  and  it  is 
for  this  reason  that  St.  Paul  could  say  to  the  Corinthians, 
"  I  determined  to  know  nothing  among  you  but  Jesus  Christ, 
and  Him  crucified." 

It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  because  the  death 
of  Christ  was  of  central  therefore  it  was  of  sole  significance 
in  respect  to  the  remission  of  sins.  We  are  warned  most 
impressively  of  the  mistake  of  such  a  view  by  the  variety  of 
the  causes  to  which  both  justification  and  remission  of  sins 
are  attributed  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul.  We  are  said  to  be 
justified  "  by  God's  grace  ; "  and  again  "  by  faith  without 
deeds  of  law  ;"  and  again  "  by  Christ's  blood ;"  and  yet  once 
more  by  His  resurrection.  He  was  "raised  again  for  our 
justification."  In  like  manner,  if  Christ's  blood  is  said 
"  to  be  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins,"  on  the  other  hand 
men  are  told  to  be  "  baptized  for  the  remission  of  sins,"  and 
again  that  "  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  shall  receive  the 
remission  of  sins." 

Such  expressions  could  never  have  resulted  from  the  view 
that  justification  or  remission  of  sins  came  from  Christ's 
death  alone.  In  order  to  give  to  them  all  their  due  place 
and  value,  we  must  seek  a  more  general  point  of  view  ;  that, 
in  fact,  which  we  have  already  recognised  as  of  central 
importance,  that  objectively  we  are  justified  and  pardoned 
through  union  with  Christ.  Looking  around  us  from 
thence,  we  see  all  subordinate  truths  falling  into  place 
and  grouping  themselves  harmoniously.  Justification  is  by 
Christ's  death,  because  only  through  death  could  the  new 
humanity  have   been  established.     It  is  through  Baptism 


IO<S  DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

and  faith  ;  for  only  by  the  one  externally,  and  by  the  other  in- 
ternally, could  we  have  been  introduced  into  that  humanity. 
It  is  through  Christ's  resurrection,  because  only  through 
His  resurrection  could  He  pass  into  the  state  where  faith 
can  find  Him  and  dwell  with  Him. 

The  Lord's  death  was  not  enough  for  our  salvation.  "  If 
Christ  be  not  raised,"  said  St.  Paul,  "  your  faith  is  vain  ;  ye 
are  yet  in  your  sins."  "A  dead  Saviour  is  no  saviour," 
cries  Dr.  Vaughan ;  *'  the  resurrection  of  Christ  was 
necessary  to  complete  His  Atonement."  I  trust  that  it 
will  be  clear  to  you  now  that  it  is  only  from  the  vantage- 
ground  of  the  central  truth  of  our  faith  that  we  can  satis- 
factorily explain  all  the  various  images,  metaphors,  and 
arguments  of  St.  Paul  with  respect  to  the  Atonement ; 
and  equally  that,  if  we  stand  firmly  at  this  point  of  view, 
we  have  no  need  of  any  of  those  arbitrary  hypotheses  which 
are  mainly  responsible  for  making  this  doctrine  a  stumbling- 
block  to  good  and  reasonable  men. 

I  have  nowhere  in  this  lecture,  you  will  perceive,  either 
questioned  the  truth  of  the  Atonement  or  thrown  doubt  on 
any  of  those  ideas  which  naturally  and  necessarily  grow  out 
of  it.  I  believe  in  a  real  atonement,  in  a  real  reconciliation 
of  man  to  God  in  the  body  of  Christ.  I  believe  that  this 
atonem.ent  was  vicariously  made,  that  we  never  could  have 
attained  to  it  unless  Christ  had  prepared  for  us  that  union 
with  God  which  I  have  called  the  new  religious  synthesis. 
I  believe,  further,  that  in  preparing  this  atonement  Christ 
offered  satisfaction  to  God  by  presenting  to  Him  a  humanity 
in  which  He  could  be  well  pleased ;  and  that,  in  fine.  He 
became  a  propitiation  by  giving  the  answer  of  a  perfectly 
approving  and  submissive  will  to  that  Divine  indignation 
which  must  ever  be  excited  by  the  spectacle  of  defiant 
wickedness, 


THE   GALATIAN    LAPSE.  lOQ 

But  while  thus  I  believe  heartily  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement,  I  am  sensible  that  with  respect  to  the  manner 
in  which  that  Atonement  was  made  my  faith  departs  widely 
from  that  of  many  good  and  intelligent  Christians.  But 
then  remember  that  questions  about  the  manner  of  the 
Atonement  are  not  de  fide.  Our  own  Church,  while  affirm- 
ing decisively  the  fact,  says  not  one  word  as  to  the  manner 
of  it.  Good  men  in  all  ages  have  differed  on  this  latter 
question. 

Gregory  Nazianzen  numbers  speculations  upon  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ  "among  those  things  on  which  it  is  useful 
to  have  correct  ideas,  but  not  dangerous  to  be  mistaken." 
Let  us  be  charitable,  then,  to  those  who  differ  from  us  on 
such  questions  ;  but  also  let  us  strive  w^ith  all  our  might  to 
clear  this  doctrine  from  untrue  and  unscriptural  elements, 
and  so  make  it  to  ourselves  and  our  brethren  a  comfort 
and  not  a  perplexity,  a  tower  of  strength  and  not  an  occasion 
of  falling.  To  have  got  rid  of  the  suspicion  that  there  was 
something  arbitrary  and  fictitious  in  the  righteousness  of 
God,  to  have  attained  to  the  conviction  that  it  is  ethical 
and  spiritual  through  and  through,  has  been  to  me  an  in- 
expressible deliverance.  Mystery  does  not  trouble  me.  I 
see  mystery  everywhere ;  mystery  in  the  being  of  the  mean- 
est thing  that  is.  That  God,  therefore,  should  be  a  mystery, 
and  man  a  mystery,  and  their  spiritual  union  in  Christ  a 
mystery,  is  what  I  expect.  But  things  which  outrage  my 
reason  and  offend  my  conscience  are  not  mysteries,  they 
are  fallacies,  impossibilities  ;  things  not  above  my  under- 
standing, but  repugnant  to  it.  I  cannot  believe  them.  All 
such,  thank  God,  the  study  of  the  Holy  Scripture  has  cleared 
away  from  my  belief  in  the  Atonement. 

And  now  that  doctrine  is  to  me  a  manifestation  of  the 
Divine  love  which  so  inconceivably  magnifies  the  glory  of 


no         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

God  as  to  make  religion  a  joy  and  an  inspiration ;  and  to 
encircle  all  human  life,  whether  here  or  hereafter,  with  that 
bow  of  hope  which  the  seer  of  Patmos  saw  engirdling  the 
throne  of  God,  "  in  sight  like  unto  an  emerald."  May  the 
unfolding  of  the  course  of  my  thought  in  these  lectures 
make  some  of  you  partakers  of  my  joy,  and  injure  no  one 
of  the  weakest  of  Christ's  little  ones.  But  whether  you 
adopt  my  explanation  of  the  blessed  truths  which  we  have 
been  considering  here,  or  some  other,  let  us  never  forget 
that  those  truths  themselves  are  not  dependent  upon  our 
explanations  of  them.  "  They  do  not  change  even  with 
the  greater  revolutions  of  things.  They  are  in  eternity  ;  and 
the  image  of  them  on  earth  is  not  the  movement  on  the 
surface  of  the  waters,  but  the  depths  of  the  silent  sea." 


THE   COLOSSIAN   HERESY. 


I. 

While  St.  Paul  was  in  prison  at  Rome  he  received  a  visit 
from  Epaphras,  who  was,  in  all  probability,  the  first  evangelist 
of  the  cities  of  the  Lycus.  Whether  he  had  sought  the 
Apostle  for  the  express  purpose  of  making  a  report  on  the 
state  of  the  churches  in  his  district  does  not  appear,  but 
certainly  he  took  occasion  by  his  visit  to  do  so.  His  report 
was,  on  the  whole,  favourable,  although  on  one  point  it  pre- 
sented matter  for  anxious  thought.  Certain  teachers  had 
arisen  in  the  Colossian  Church,  who  were  putting  forth 
doctrines  which  seemed  to  Epaphras  strange  and  dangerous. 
He  made  the  Apostle  acquainted  with  them,  and  asked  for 
his  advice  and  assistance.  Thereupon  St.  Paul  wrote  a 
letter,  that  which  we  call  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  and 
sent  it  to  Colossie,  along  with  two  others  to  different  desti- 
nations, by  the  hand  of  Epaphras.  It  is  to  the  first  of  these 
letters  that  we  are  mainly  indebted  for  our  knowledge  of  the 
Colossian  heresy  ;  and  if  I  had  spoken  to  you  on  this  subject 
a  few  years  ago  I  should  have  thought  it  necessary  to  say 
something  in  support  of  its  genuineness.  The  advance  of 
criticism  has,  however,  spared  me  that  trouble.  There  can 
be  httle  use  in  defending  what  few  instructed  critics  would 
be  likely  to  deny ;  but  to  anyone  who  cares  to  see  the 
reliableness  of  our  Epistle  established  in  a  satisfactory  way 
I  may  recommend,  among  other  works,  the  learned  and 
sober  Introduction  of  Dr.  Salmon,  Regius  Professor  of 
Divinity  at  Dublin. 

8 


114  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

When,  however,  one  has  assumed  the  genuineness  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  one  has  only  gone  a  short  way 
in  the  task  of  explaining  the  Colossian  heresy,  and  the 
apostolic  teaching  to  which  it  gave  rise.  Who  were  the 
Colossians  ?  what  was  their  history  ?  and  how  came  they, 
rather  than  others,  to  fall  into  the  opinions  which  St.  Paul 
deprecates  ?  Such  are  some  of  the  questions  which  present 
themselves  to  the  curious  mind,  and  which  I  must  try  to 
answer  in  this  lecture. 

If  you  take  a  good  map  of  Asia  Minor,  as  it  was  in  the 
first  century,  you  will  see  that  the  little  river  Lycus,  rising 
in  Mount  Cadmus,  flows  through  the  south-western  region 
of  Phrygia,  and  falls  into  the  better-known  river  Mseander. 
On  the  opposite  sides  of  this  stream,  with  the  valley 
between  them,  lay  the  two  well-known  cities  Hierapolis 
and  Laodicsea;  the  former  a  rising  and  wealthy  city  and 
a  fashionable  watering-place,  the  latter  the  capital  of  a 
civil  diocese,  or  small  province,  and  already  renowned  for 
its  commerce,  wealth,  and  distinguished  citizens.  Hierapolis 
and  Laodicaea  were  connected  by  a  bridge  which  crossed 
the  Lycus.  Beginning,  then,  from  this  bridge,  and  ascend- 
ing the  Lycus  for  about  eight  or  ten  miles,  you  would  come 
to  Colossae,  which  lay  on  both  sides  of  the  stream.  Its 
situation  was  commanding.  It  stood  at  the  mouth  of  a 
pass  in  the  range  of  Mount  Cadmus,  through  which 
went  the  great  highway  connecting  Western  with  Eastern 
Asia.  Favoured  by  its  situation,  it  was  in  early  days  a 
place  of  considerable  importance.  Here  the  great  host 
of  Xerxes  halted  on  its  march  against  Greece,  and 
Herodotus  calls  it  "  a  great  city  of  Phrygia."  In  the 
Aposde's  days,  however,  it  had  shrunk  to  very  small  pro- 
portions, having  suffered  much  from  earthquakes,  and  from 
the  competidon  of  the  neighbouring  cities  of  Laodicaea  and 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  I  I  5 

Hierapolis.  Bishop  Lightfoot  observes  that  "  without  doubt 
Colossce  was  the  least  important  Church  to  which  any  Epistle 
of  St.  Paul  was  addressed.'' 

In  the  history  of  religion,  however,  the  importance  of 
places  is  not  to  be  measured  by  their  size.  Small  villages 
like  Bethel,  Bethlehem,  and  Nazareth  are  better  known  to 
the  whole  civilized  world  than  the  greatest  and  wealthiest 
cities  of  the  past.  The  history  of  religion  is  mainly  the 
history  of  the  rise  and  spread  of  opinions  and  influences ; 
and  if  those  places  have,  from  this  point  of  view,  most 
importance  which  have  witnessed  the  rise  and  spread  of 
influential  doctrines,  then  Colosste  cannot  be  without  its 
interest  for  the  modern  Christian.  For  the  opinions  which 
prevailed  there,  in  the  Christian  Church  of  the  first  century, 
not  only  spread  and  took  portentous  proportions  in  the 
century  following,  but  have  also,  as  I  hope  to  show  you,  a 
special  interest  for  ourselves. 

It  becomes,  thus,  a  matter  of  some  importance  to  deter- 
mine, if  we  can,  in  the  first  place,  what  made  Colossae  and 
the  neighbouring  towns  and  region  a  soil  specially  favourable 
to  the  growth  of  Gnostical  opinions.  It  will  have  specia 
significance  for  the  students  of  those  erratic  movements  of 
early  Christian  thought  to  learn  that  Colossae  was  situated 
in  ancient  Phrygia  and  near  to  Hierapolis,  a  noted  centre 
of  the  passionate  mystical  devotion  of  that  country.  There 
was  to  be  found  the  Plutonium,  a  hot  well  or  spring,  from 
which  there  issued  a  mephitic  vapour,  which  was  said  to  be 
fatal  to  all  except  the  Galli,  the  mutilated  priests  of  Cybele, 
the  great  mother  of  the  Phrygian  cult.  If,  then,  we  can 
only  get  some  trustworthy  information  as  to  the  history  of 
old  Phrygia  and  the  nature  of  its  peculiar  faith,  we  shall 
have  gone  far  to  understand  the  religious  temper  and  procli- 
vities of  the  lower  classes  of  Coloss?e  and  its  neighbourhood. 


Il6  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

No  doubt  we  must  make  allowance  for  the  several  waves  of 
religious  and  secular  influence  which  had  passed  succes- 
sively over  the  land  in  times  nearer  to  the  apostolic  age  ; 
but  to  those  who  know  how  long  and  tenaciously  a  deep 
religious  influence  retains  its  hold  upon  the  people  it  will 
not  be  necessary  to  prove  that  the  original  religious  faith  of 
a  country  is  of  the  first  importance  in  determining  its  pre- 
vailing temper  and  susceptibilities.  What,  then,  let  us  ask, 
do  we  know  of  Phrygia  and  its  religious  cult  ? 

Twenty  years  ago,  yea,  even  ten  years  ago,  I  could 
have  told  you  little  more  than  that  Phrygia  had  been 
looked  upon  by  the  Greeks  as  the  oldest  country  in  the 
world;  that  its  speech  was  thought  to  be  the  original 
language  of  mankind  ;  and  that  its  kings  appeared  to  the 
Greeks  of  Ionia  and  the  Troad  to  be  something  half  divine. 
The  meaning  of  this,  of  course,  is,  that  its  civilization  was  so 
advanced,  and  its  religious  culture  so  august  and  mysterious, 
that  to  semi-barbarians  it  appeared  to  belong  to  a  sphere 
above  that  of  their  daily  life.  But  the  last  ten  years  have 
been  fruitful  of  discoveries  in  Asia  Minor,  and  we  now 
know  why  the  Midases  of  Phrygia  seemed  to  the  rough 
Greeks  to  have  been  associates  of  the  gods. 

It  has  been  discovered  that  Asia  Minor  has  an  ancient 
road-system  which  radiated  from  a  centre  in  Cappadocia. 
Thence  went  important  highways  to  Sinope,  the  northern 
port  en  the  Black  Sea,  to  the  Cilician  gates  on  the  south- 
east, and  to  Sardis  in  the  far  west.  The  significance  of 
this  discovery  wuU  become  apparent  if  you  imagine  some 
one  in  modern  days  finding  out,  for  the  first  time,  that  the 
vast  system  of  Roman  highways  diverged  from  the  old 
golden  milestone  in  the  Roman  forum.,  That  fact  alone 
would  make  it  plain  that  Rome  was  once  the  centre  of  a 
mighty  empire,  embracing  \Yithiq  its  ample  boun<^s  all  the 


THE    COLOSSIAN    IlERESV.  I  I  7 

countries  lying  round  the  Mediterranean.  This  conclusion 
would  be  further  confirmed  if,  at  the  same  time,  our 
imaginary  modern  antiquary  had  discovered  at  Rome  the 
ruins  of  a  vast  and  wealthy  capital.  Now  all  this  has 
happened  in  Asia  Minor.  At  Pteria  in  Cappadocia,  the 
centre  of  the  old  road-system  of  Asia  Minor,  great  ruins 
have  been  discovered,  so  vast  in  their  circuit,  and  so 
remarkable  for  their  antique  rock-sculptures,  that  they  are 
beyond  doubt  the  most  considerable  in  the  whole  country. 
Again,  the  course  of  the  ancient  road  from  Pteria  to  Sardis 
is  marked  throughout  its  whole  extent  by  traces  of  the  same 
archaic  art,  and  at  one  particular  spot  in  Phrygia  (a  plateau 
with  perpendicular  faces  of  rock),  there  lie  the  ruins  of  a 
second  city,  less  extensive,  indeed,  than  the  former,  but  still 
most  remarkable  for  its  vast  walls  and  strangely-inscribed 
monuments.  On  comparing  the  ruins  of  these  great  cities 
of  the  ante-historical  period,  it  becomes  evident  that  the 
smaller  of  the  two  was  the  glorious  capital  of  ancient 
Phrygia,  the  central  seat  of  that  wise  and  great  civilization 
which  so  dazzled  the  imagination  of  the  ancient  Greeks. 
This  city  is,  however,  modern  by  comparison  with  the 
Cappadocian  Pteria.  There  was  the  centre  of  a  vaster, 
mightier,  and  far  more  ancient  dominion,  which  has  left 
the  marks  of  its  supremacy  in  archaic  sculptures,  and  a 
yet  undeciphered  script,  in  all  parts  of  Asia  Minor.  What 
was  this  vast,  ancient,  wealthy,  and  powerful  empire,  the 
mother  of  the  grand  Phrygian  civilization?  How  shall 
we  name  it,  and  where  shall  we  place  it  among  the  great 
monarchies  of  the  past  ?  How,  for  instance,  was  it  related 
to  the  ancient  colossal  empires  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia? 
The  classical  historians  know  nothing  of  it ;  and,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  evidence  of  our  eyes,  we  might  refuse  to  believe 
in  its  existence  as  resolutely  as  certain  sceptical  critics  did 


I  I  8  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

twenty  years  ago.  But  the  spade  has  been  at  work  since 
then,  and  lo  !  from  the  ruins  of  Egypt  and  Assyria  we  have 
dug  up  the  evidence  that,  at  a  period  long  anterior  to  the 
days  of  Moses,  the  world-empires  of  the  Nile  and  Euphrates 
had  waged  desperate  wars,  and  concluded  important 
treaties  with  a  great  northern  people,  whom  the  Egyptians 
call  Keta,  the  Assyrians  Khatti,  and  the  Bible  Chittim  or 
Hittites.  So  long  as  the  dominion  of  the  Hittites  was 
supposed  to  be  confined  to  Syria,  their  successful  resist- 
ance to  such  powers  as  Assyria  and  Egypt  seemed  to  be 
unaccountable.  But  when  we  find  that  Kadesh  and 
Carchemish  were  nothing  more  than  frontier  capitals,  and 
that  the  heart  of  the  Hittite  empire  was  upon  the  broad 
plains  and  highlands  of  Asia  Minor,  we  understand  whence 
they  drew  the  vast  wealth  and  great  armies  which  enabled 
them  so  long  to  contend  upon  equal  terms  with  the  strongest 
empires  of  the  ancient  world. 

It  results,  then,  from  these  comparatively  recent  dis- 
coveries, that  the  ancient  Phrygian  race  owned  the  sway 
and  inherited  the  civilization,  or  perhaps  we  should  rather 
say  contributed  to  mould  the  civilization,  of  the  powerful 
empire  of  the  Hittites.  It  may  be  that,  when  we  know 
more  of  the  antiquities  of  this  great  race,  we  shall  be  al:)le  to 
give  some  more  adequate  account  than  is  now  possible  of 
the  religious  beliefs  and  feelings  of  ancient  Phrygia.  Some- 
thing, however,  is  already  known,  partly  from  the  classical 
historians,  and  partly  from  the  monuments.  And  that  some- 
thing happens  to  be  of  great  interest  in  connection  with 
the  subject  which  we  are  considering. 

Amongst  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  Phrygian  capital  are 
some  very  interesting  sepulchral  monuments.  One  class  of 
them  are  called  heraldic,  because  they  usually  consist  of 
lions  rampant,  separated  by  a  pillar  or  some  other  device. 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  IIQ 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  oldest  great  monument  on 
Greek  soil,  the  principal  gateway  at  Mycence  in  Argolis, 
is  surmounted  by  a  heraldic  device,  which  is  an  exact  re- 
production of  what  may  be  found  among  the  ruins  of  the 
^old  Phrygian  capital.  This  confirms  the  Greek  tradition 
that  the  Pelopida3  who  erected  that  gateway  were  Phrygian 
immigrants.  Amongst  the  monuments,  however,  which 
have  a  religious  significance  one  of  the  most  interesting  is  a 
rock  sepulchre,  which  has  sculptured  on  the  walls  of  its  little 
chamber  a  rude  image  of  the  mother-goddess  Cybele, 
"having  on  each  side  of  her  a  lion,  which  rests  its  forepaws 
upon  her  shoulder,  and  places  its  head  against  hers,"  just  as 
a  domestic  cat  might  do  with  an  indulgent  mistress.  The 
lion  rubbing  its  head  in  loving  confidence  against  the  face 
of  the  great  goddess  is  as  pregnant  an  expression  of  the 
character  ascribed  by  the  Phrygians  to  their  great  mother 
as  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  Cybele  is  thus  seen  to  be  an 
impersonation  of  that  great  kind  Nature  which  is  loving  to 
all  her  children,  to  the  fierce  lion  of  the  desert  as  to  the 
little  child  of  the  city  or  the  tent.  We  must  not,  however, 
suppose  that  these  ancient  Nature-worshippers  were  blind  to 
the  darker  aspect  of  the  order  in  which  they  lived.  Asia 
Minor,  and  especially  the  Phrygian  part  of  it,  is  a  country 
bare  and  almost  treeless,  whose  agriculture,  the  main  occu- 
pation of  the  ancient  inhabitants,  is  dependent  upon  a 
capricious  and  often  insufficient  rainfall.  This  frequendy 
produced  dearth  and  widespread  suffering  both  to  men  and 
beasts.  The  life  of  Nature  was  often  burnt  up  by  the  fierce 
summer  sun.  This  fact  was  mythically  represented  by  the 
legend  of  Sabazius,  son  of  the  great  mother,  and  representing 
as  such  the  life  of  Nature.  He  was  born  and  flourished  in 
the  spring,  he  was  slain  by  the  hot  summer  sun,  and  he 
revived  again  with  the  spring  of  a  new  year.     Cybele  was 


120  DANGERS   OF    THE    APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

represented  as  wailing  bitterly  at  his  death  and  rejoicing  at 
his  restoration.  Accordingly,  the  principal  religious  cere- 
mony of  this  old  Nature  cult  was  a  wailing  with  Cybele  at 
the  death  of  Sabazius.  To  celebrate  this  rite  men  and 
women  went  forth  into  obscure  places,  led  by  their  priests, 
and,  abandoning  themselves  to  the  most  frantic  grief,  endea- 
voured to  give  expression  to  their  frenzy  by  orgiastic  dances 
and  the  music  of  the  flute  and  cymbal.  Such  abandonment 
to  the  most  violent  emotions  in  the  obscurity  of  desert 
places  could  never  have  been  without  the  greatest  danger  to 
the  moral  life.  No  doubt  in  the  earliest  period  this  ecstatic 
Nature-worship  might  be  comparatively  pure.  But  when 
war  and  commerce  had  brought  the  Phrygians  into  closer 
communication  with  the  Assyrians,  having  a  Nature-religion 
with  features  which  strikingly  resembled  their  own,  they 
took  over  ideas  and  influences  from  the  hot  South  of  a 
terribly  demoralizing  character. 

In  his  recent  Hibbert  Lectures  Professor  Sayce  has  given 
us  a  sketch  of  the  old  Accadian  worship  of  Istar,  and  of  its 
later  developments  in  Babylonia  and  Phoenicia,  which  throws 
great  light  on  the  subject  we  are  considering.  In  the  old 
Accadian  days,  before  Semitic  influence  had  subordinated 
the  feminine  god  to  the  male  Baal,  Nature-worship  in 
Chaldaea  would  seem  to  have  been  almost  as  simple  in  form 
as  in  Phrygia  itself.  The  Accadian  goddess,  who  after- 
wards became  in  Semitic  phrase  Istar,  was  originally  an 
independent  deity,  and  called  "  the  lady  of  the  deep." 
Afterwards  she  was  deemed  the  goddess  of  the  evening  star, 
and  had  her  place  beside  the  moon  and  sun  gods.  In  the 
early  Assyrian  belief  this  astral  deity  stood  even  higher  than 
Tammuz  the  sun-god,  who  was  mainly  worshipped  as  her 
bridegroom.  There  is  a  very  early  hymn  which  describes 
her  descent  into  Hades  to  obtain  the  water  of  life  for  the 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  121 

revival  of  the  slain  Tammuz.     Professor  Tiele  has  shown 
that  this  legend  is  but  a  thinly-veiled  description   of  the 
earth-goddess  seeking  below  for  those  hidden  waters  of  life 
which  shall  cause  the  sun-god,  and  all  Nature  with  him,  to 
rise  again  from  their  sleep  of  death.     Here,  then,  we  find 
"  the  lady  of  the  deep  "  and  goddess  of  the  evening  star 
absorbing  into  herself  the  character  and  offices  of  the  great 
earth-mother  of  the  Phrygians.     These  ideas  are  certainly 
as  early  as  Sargon,  the  first  Semitic  monarch  of  Babylonia ; 
and  it  almost  takes  one's  breath  away  to  learn  that  the  son  of 
this  Semitic  successor  of  the  old  Accadian  dynasties  is  shown 
by  the  monuments  to  have  lived  and  reigned  in  3750  b.c, 
or  only  254  years  after  the  supposed  date  of  the  Creation, 
according  to  the  chronology  of  Usher.     In  the  long  centuries 
which  followed,  the  myth  of  Istar  travelled  over  many  lands, 
and  underwent  not  a  few  transformations  in  the  countries 
to  which  it  came.     Istar  became  in  Ionia  the  Artemis  of 
Ephesus,  with   her   warrior-priestesses,    the  Amazons.     In 
Phoenicia  she  became  Ashtoreth,  in  Hierapolis  Semiramis; 
but  wherever  she  went  she  was  always  represented  as  weeping 
for  her  slain  bridegroom,  the  sun-god,  under  his  different 
names,  Adonis,  Attys,  or  Tammuz.     The  more  her  original 
character  was  modified  by  Semitic  influences  the  more  sub- 
ordinate did  she  become  to  the  Baal  or  sun-god,  and  the 
more  licentious   and   extravagant    became  the  rites  of  her 
worship.     *'  From  Syria,"   says  Professor  Sayce,  "  the  cult, 
with  all   its   rites,  made   its  way,  like  that  of  Attys-Adonis 
to  the  populations    beyond  the  Taurus.     At  Komana,   in 
Cappadocia,  the  goddess  was  ministered  to  by  six  thousand 
eunuch  priests  ;  and  the  Galli  of  Phrygia  rivalled  the  priests 
of  Baal  and  Ashtoreth  in  cutting  their  arms  with  knives,  in 
scourging  their  backs,  and  in  piercing  their  flesh  with  darts. 
The  worship  of  the  fierce  powers  of  Nature,  at  once  life- 


122  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

giving  and  death-dealing,  .  .  .  produced  alternate  bursts  of 
frenzied  torture  and  frenzied  lust." 

But  however  licentious  the  later  forms  of  the  Istar  wor- 
ship might  have  become,  there  clearly  was  a  time  in  the 
earlier  Accadian  history  when,  as  Shamanism  and  Totemism 
gave  w^ay  to  the  process  of  impersonation,  the  worship  of 
Istar  in  Babylonia  was  as  simple  and  austere  a  Nature- 
worship  as  that  of  Cybele  among  the  Hittites  and  ancient 
Phrygians.  The  cults,  indeed,  resemble  one  another  so 
closely  that  we  cannot  help  suspecting  a  relation  of  depend- 
ence ;  and  if  one  may  venture  to  speculate,  where  history 
is  as  yet  silent,  it  would  seem  far  from  improbable  that  the 
Hamitic  inhabitants  of  old  Chaldaea  and  the  Hamitic  tribes 
of  Cappadocia  were  originally  one  people,  with  one  simple 
conception  of  Nature  and  her  life  as  their  great  goddess 
and  her  son.  If  the  one  cult  were  indeed  derived  from 
the  other,  we  must  look,  I  doubt  not,  for  its  origin  to  that 
Eridu,  or  Edin,  at  the  ancient  junction  of  the  Euphrates 
and  the  Persian  Gulf,  w^hich  was  the  main  source  of  the 
Chaldoean  idolatry  from  which  Abram  fled,  and  of  those 
legends  of  the  Flood  which  have  so  startling  a  resemblance 
to  some  of  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis. 

But  you  may  ask :  What  historical  assurance  can  we  have 
that  the  ideas  of  this  old  Phrygian  Nature-worship  still 
retained  their  hold  on  the  mind  and  imagination  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Lycus  Valley  so  many  centuries  after  the 
destruction  of  Phrygian  greatness  ?  Conqueror  after  con- 
queror had  swept  over  the  land,  Cimmerian,  Lydian, 
Persian,  and  Gallic  ;  overthrowing  cities,  shattering  monu- 
ments, obliterating  all  traces  of  the  ancient  Phrygian  wisdom 
and  grandeur,  and  reducing  the  people  to  a  base  and  hope- 
less slavery.  How  was  it  likely  that  the  old  religious  ideas 
and  feelings  would  survive  the  wreck   of  everything  else? 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  I  2  3 

Religious  ideas,  I  answer,  have  a  more  tenacious  hold  than 
any  which  find  place  in  the  human  mind ;  and  they  have 
proved  themselves,  a  thousand  times,  to  be  stronger  than 
kingly  thrones,  and  harder  than  the  brass  of  which  kings 
construct  their  monuments.  So  was  it  in  the  present 
instance.  Not  only  do  we  find  that  wave  after  wave  of 
Phrygian  religious  influence  swept  over  the  Greek  and 
Roman  world,  in  spite  of  the  satire  of  poets  and  the  de- 
nunciation of  philosophers,  but  that,  as  Mr.  Ramsay  remarks, 
"in  the  first  centuries  after  Christ,  no  rites  but  those  of 
Egypt  and  Phrygia  retained  much  hold  of  the  Grseco-Roman 
world."  The  religions  of  Hellas  had  lost  their  soul.  Men 
could  no  longer  see  nymphs  in  every  stream,  dryads  in  every 
oak,  or  oreads  on  every  mountain.  The  tales  of  the  gods 
were  full  of  things  which  were  disgusting  or  incredible  to 
a  secularized  intellect.  Men  only  pretended  to  believe  in 
such  things;  and  their  worship,  when  it  was  paid,  was  nothing 
more  than  a  concession  to  custom.  But  for  all  that,  the 
religious  instinct  was  not  dead.  It  was  deathless,  in  fact,  as 
the  human  heart  itself,  and  sought  eagerly  in  every  direction 
for  satisfaction.  Is  it,  then,  so  wonderful  that  at  least  the 
masses  of  mankind  should  have  found  what  they  sought  in 
the  comparatively  simple  Nature-cult  of  Phrygia,  a  cult 
already  familiarized  in  the  mysteries  themselves  ?  Or  is  it 
wonderful,  again,  that  in  an  age  weary  of  doubt,  and  tired  of 
the  monotonous,  uninteresting  round  of  a  mere  life  of  sense, 
men  felt  it  a  relief  and  a  change  to  be  caught  up  into  the 
whirl  of  religious  excitement  produced  by  the  worship  of 
the  Great  Mother  ? 

But  if  this  were  the  case  in  the  Graeco-Roman  world 
generally,  how  much  more  must  it  have  been  so  in  that 
particular  part  of  it  to  which  this  worship  was,  so  to  speak, 
native  ;  where  its  ideas  and  practices  had  been  learnt  from 


124  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

childhood;  and  where  its  prevaiHng  feehng  had  been 
stamped  upon  the  very  nature  of  the  people  by  the  here- 
ditary influence  of  an  immemorial  past  ?  The  very  history 
of  Phrygia,  therefore,  would  prepare  us  to  find  a  people 
there  predisposed  to  naturalism  in  thought  and  enthusiasm 
in  feeling.  And  if  the  former  tendency  realized  itself  in 
Gnosticism,  and  the  latter  in  Montanism  with  its  ecstasies 
and  asceticisms,  that  is  nothing  more  than  we  should  expect. 
For  no  form  of  religious  thought  or  feeling  which  has  been 
deeply  fixed  in  mind  and  heart  by  custom  and  heredity,  can 
die  out  speedily.  You  may  superimpose  upon  it  other  forms 
of  a  different  and  even  contradictory  character —nobler, 
perhaps,  in  conception,  and  purer  in  force  of  moral  appeal : 
but  the  old  habitudes  are  not  necessarily  thereby  eradicated. 
They  lie  latent  in  the  mind,  silently  working  and  ready  to 
start  forth  into  violent  activity  on  the  application  of  the  appro- 
priate stimulus.  It  is  the  forgetfulness  of  this  truth  which  has 
brought  such  undeserved  reproach  upon  Christianity  in  the 
course  of  its  historical  realization.  In  the  middle  ages  men 
were  called  Christians  because  they  had  taken  the  Christian 
name,  and  submitted  to  certain  Christian  rites ;  and  then 
straightway  whatever  they  did  and  said  in  their  religious 
character  was  attributed  to  the  religion  which  they  had 
nominally  embraced.  Nothing  could  be  more  unfounded, 
nor  more  unjust.  The  old  pagan  feelings  and  habits  of 
thought  lurked  behind  the  new  beliefs,  incessantly  cor- 
rupting them,  and  not  seldom  breaking  forth  through  their 
thin  crust  into  utterly  unchristian  acts  and  expressions.  So 
was  it  in  New  Zealand  in  our  own  days.  The  New  Zea- 
landers  were  said  to  be  converted  to  Christianity  ;  and  so, 
in  a  sense,  they  were.  They  had  gained  new  convictions, 
and  lived,  on  the  whole,  under  the  impulse  of  a  new  spirit. 
But  men  forget  that  behind  these  there  lay,  only  half-sub- 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  12$ 

dued,  the  old  savage  impulses  and  superstitions,  which  burst 
forth  at  length  into  that  horrible  pagan  reaction  which 
almost  broke  Bishop  Selwyn's  heart.  In  like  manner  men 
are  astonished  to-day,  but  most  unreasonably  so,  that  the 
Hindoo  deceit,  begotten  of  ages  of  servile  subjection,  breaks 
out  again  and  again,  in  spite  of  the  restraints  of  Christian 
truth  and  purity,  in  newly-made  converts.  It  is  always 
dangerous  and  misleading  to  ignore  facts  ;  and  it  is  a  fact 
that,  even  under  the  powerful  impulse  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
inherited  feelings  and  beliefs  require  time  for  their  com- 
plete eradication.  Let  us  beware  of  this  ourselves.  Puritan 
narrowness  is  not  to  be  overcome  by  one,  or  by  a  hundred, 
statements  of  broader  and  more  salutary  truth.  Pagan 
superstitions  die  hard,  even  to-day,  in  many  of  our  country 
villages.  And  there  will  be  many  an  outbreak  of  Salva-. 
tionism  before  the  sweet  reasonableness  of  the  Gospel  has 
quite  expelled  the  blind  passionateness  of  that  religion  of 
hysterical  enthusiasm  which  brings  so  welcome  a  relief  to 
the  brutish  monotony  of  an  ignorant  life.  We  shall  not 
have  studied  in  vain,  then,  the  long  course  of  the  Nature- 
worships  of  ancient  Phrygia  and  Babylonia,  if  they  have 
pointed  for  us  this  salutary  warning,  and  taught  us  to  add 
the  Divine  patience  and  considerateness  of  our  Great 
Master  to  His  enthusiasm  for  purity  and  truth. 


II. 

I  SHALL  endeavour  to-night  to  explain  to  you,  as  far  as  I 
may,  the  nature  of  the  Colossian  heresy. 

St.  Paul  refers  to  it  in  such  language  as  the  following  : 
"  Beware  lest  there  shall  be  any  one  that  maketh  spoil  of  you 
through  his  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,  according  to  the 
tradition  of  men,  after  the  rudiments  of  the  world,  and  not 
after  Christ :  .  .  .  Let  no  one  judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink, 
or  in  respect  of  a  feast  day  or  a  new  moon  or  a  Sabbath 
day :  w^hich  are  a  shadow  of  the  things  to  come;  but  the  body 
is  Christ's.  Let  no  man  therefore  rob  you  of  your  prize  by 
a  voluntary  humility  and  worshipping  of  the  angels,  taking 
his  stand  upon  the  things  which  he  hath  seen,  vainly  puffed 
up  in  his  fleshly  mind.  ...  If  ye  died  with  Christ  from  the 
rudiments  of  the  world,  why,  as  if  you  lived  in  the  world, 
have  you  rules  laid  down  for  you,  '  Handle  not,  touch  not, 
taste  not,'  according  to  the  precepts  and  doctrines  of  men? 
which  things  indeed  have  a  show  of  wisdom,  in  will-worship 
and  humility  and  severity  to  the  body,  but  are  not  of  any 
value  against  the  indulgence  of  the  flesh." 

In  these  expressions  we  find  a  reference  to  two  elements 
of  false  teaching,  and  to  an  unchristian  spirit  in  which  that 
teaching  is  set  forth.  There  is  false  theory,  false  practice, 
and  a  false  spirit.  The  false  theory  is  a  theosophic  inculca- 
tion of  the  worship  of  angels,  an  interposition  of  created 
mediators  between  God  and  man.  The  false  practice  is  an 
effort  to  attain  perfection  by  ascitic  observances,  by  a  frigid 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 27 

formalism,  and  by  seventy  to  the  body.  And  here  we 
observe  an  element  of  Jewish  influence.  The  formalism  is 
Jewish  formalism.  It  has  respect  to  meats  and  drinks,  to 
festivals  and  Sabbaths.  Further,  we  perceive  that  these 
two  elements,  the  Gentile  theory  and  the  Jewish  practice, 
are  inseparably  blended.  They  evidently  form  part  of  the 
same  system,  and  are  equally  important,  in  the  mind,  of  the 
creators  and  defenders  of  that  system. 

Once  again,  the  spirit  which  animates  this  teaching  is 
proudly  exclusive.  It  has  a  show  of  wisdom,  and  its  de- 
fenders are  "  vainly  puffed  up  in  their  fleshly  mind."  They 
advance  high  claims  to  knowledge,  they  have  a  deposit  of 
esoteric  truth  which  they  only  impart  to  the  initiated ;  look- 
ing, it  would  seem,  upon  ordinary  believers  as  ignorant  and 
unenlightened.  The  spirit  of  the  system  is  that  of  an  intel- 
lectual aristocracy,  with  its  characteristic  self-satisfaction  and 
its  disdain  of  everything  which  it  thinks  beneath  it. 

All  this  would  seem  to  point  to  a  semi-heathen  system 
of  speculation,  adopted  by  Jewish  Christians,  and  largely 
traversed  with  Jewish  formalism  and  exclusiveness. 

Now  is  it  probable  that  there  would  be  found  in  the 
Jewish  Church  at  Colossae,  when  our  Epistle  professes  to 
have  been  written,  Jewish  converts  who  had  embraced, 
and  would  be  likely  to  propound,  such  a  system  of  semi- 
pagan  theosophy  ?  There  is  little  difficulty  in  giving  a 
definite  answer  to  that  question.  We  know  that  Antiochus 
the  Great  transported  two  thousand  Jewish  families  from 
Babylonia  into  Lydia  and  Phrygia.  Phrygia  especially 
seems  to  have  possessed  great  attractions  for  Jewish 
settlers.  Drawn  thither  by  the  fertility  of  the  country  and 
its  thriving  commerce,  and  not  less  perhaps  by  its  life  of 
luxury,  the  Jewish  colony  of  the  district  of  Laodicaea  had 
Increased  so  greatly  that,  about  sixty  year§  before  Christ, 


128  DANGERS    OF   THE   ArOSTOLIC   AGE. 

there  were  at  the  least  (for  this  is  a  low  estimate)  eleven 
thousand  adult  freemen  there,  besides  women  and  children. 
It  follows  very  naturally  that  many  of  the  wealthier  and 
more  cultured  members  of  this  Jewish  colony  had  imbibed 
the  philosophical  and  cosmological  views  of  their  heathen 
neighbours.     The  age  was  cosmopolitan.     As  early  as  the 
time   of  Alexander    national   barriers    had   been   roughly 
beaten   down   by   the   sword   of  the  conqueror;   and   the 
Macedonians,  who  had  carried  with  them  from  Europe  the 
thoughts  and  beliefs  of  the  West,  had  brought  back,  on  their 
return,  not  only  the  wares  and  luxuries,  but  also  the  strange 
superstitions  and  mystical  Nature-cults,  of  the  East.     In  the 
apostolic  times,  especially  at  such   centres  as  Alexandria, 
Antioch,  Ephesus,  and  the  great  cities  of  Phrygia,  this  con- 
fusing intermixture  of   heterogeneous  religions,  rites,  and 
riotions  was  at  its  height.     Protected  by  the  Roman  peace, 
and  stimulated  by  the  love  of  gain,  men  of  all  the  races  of 
East  and  West  met,  traded,  and  argued  in  every  noted  mart 
of  the  empire.     Thoughts  ran  along  the  Roman  roads,  as 
freely  as   merchants    and    couriers ;    and    instead  of    the 
brooding  originality  of  local  thinkers  the  world  had  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  glitter  of  a  superficial  eclecticism. 

Amongst  the  agents  and  intermediaries  of  this  selective 
reconstruction,  the  most  active,  and  not  the  least  talented, 
were  the  Jews.  This,  as  Mr.  LI.  Davies  remarks,  was 
"something  of  a  paradox."  For  both  by  their  faith  and 
civil  policy  the  Jews  were  marked  out  as  a  separate  and 
peculiar  people.  But,  as  the  same  writer  acutely  observes, 
"the  Jewish  intellect  was  more  fertile  than  any  other  in 
new  theosophic  combinations,"  because  "  the  depth  and 
truth  of  this  people's  faith  gave  them  an  interest  in  what- 
ever laid  hold  strongly  of  the  convictions  of  other  races." 
If,  then,  we  find  that  they  were  Jews  who  first  introduced 


THE   COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 29 

Gnostic  speculations  to  the  Church  of  Colossae,  this  is  no 
more  than  we  might  have  been  led  to  expect  from  our 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  Jewish  mind,  and  of  the 
historical  connection  of  the  Jewish  people  with  Coloss?e 
and  its  neighbourhood. 

But  it  may  be  urged  we  are  concerned  here,  not  with 
Oriental  mysticism  in  general,  but  with  a  fairly  definite  set 
of  opinions  and  practices.  Is  there  any  reliable  evidence, 
then,  that  the  Jewish  people  of  that  age  were  likely  to  be 
gnostical  in  thought  and  ascetic  in  practice?  In  answer 
to  this  question  Bishop  Lightfoot  has  shown  that  the  faith 
of  the  Jewish  Essenes  of  our  Lord's  days  presented  these 
very  peculiarities.  While  decrying  generally  the  specula- 
tions of  philosophers,  the  Essenes  excepted  those  which 
treat  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of  the  generation  of  the 
universe.  They  made  a  great  secret  of  "  the  names  of  the 
angels,"  a  phrase  which  points  not  obscurely  to  some  such 
angelolatry  and  doctrine  of  emanations  as  those  prevailing 
at  Colossae.  In  some  sense  also,  though  strict  monotheists, 
they  worshipped  the  sun,  as  a  symbol,  probably,  of  the 
unseen  power  which  gives  light  and  life.  Again,  they 
sought  above  all  things  to  detach  themselves  from  the 
ordinary  conditions  of  physical  life  by  ascetic  abstinences. 
They  avoided  marriage,  drank  no  wine,  ate  no  animal 
food,  refused,  though  Jews,  to  offer  sacrifices,  and  held  a 
doctrine  of  immortality  which  involved  the  final  separation 
of  the  soul  from  the  malignant  and  polluting  contact  of 
matter. 

They  had  also,  in  addition  to  the  peculiar  doctrines  and 
practices  of  the  later  Gnostics,  their  distinguishing  spirit ; 
possessing  an  esoteric  doctrine  which  they  jealously  kept 
from  the  knowledge  of  all  but  the  initiated,  and  avoiding 
all  contact  with  the  "  men  of  the  earth  "  as  unclean  and 

9 


130         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

defiling.  It  is  not  suggested  that  the  gnostical  innovators 
at  Colossae  were  actually  Essenic  missionaries  from  the 
lodges  by  the  Dead  Sea.  But  it  is  obvious  that,  if  the 
Jews  of  Palestine  had  caught  the  infection  of  that  spirit  of 
Oriental  mysticism  which  was  in  the  air,  it  becomes  easy 
to  conceive  that  the  members  of  the  same  race  would  be 
likely  to  feel  its  influence  in  such  a  country  as  Phrygia. 

I  endeavoured  to  show  you  last  Sunday  that  the  native 
faith  of  Colossae  and  its  neighbourhood  was  a  simple 
Nature-worship.  Nature  was  to  the  inhabitants  of  this 
region  the  Great  Mother  who  poured  into  their  lap  the 
rich  blessings  of  wealth  and  plenty.  But  she  felt,  it  was 
supposed,  the  sharp  suffering  arising  from  drought  and 
disease,  pain  and  death.  The  prevalence  of  these  natural 
evils,  and  the  dark  cloud  which  they  cast  over  an  other- 
wise bright  existence,  were  dramatically  represented  in  the 
wailing  of  the  Great  Mother  for  her  slain  son  Sabazius. 
To  bring  themselves,  then,  into  harmony  with  the  sorrow 
of  their  deity,  the  Phrygian  people  invented  religious 
ceremonies  of  which  the  principal  features  were  a  wild 
wailing,  a  frenzied  cutting  of  the  body,  and  a  dark  and 
austere  asceticism.  Their  whole  cult  was,  in  truth,  an 
elaborate  representation  of  the  night-side  of  Nature.  How 
far,  however,  they  had  gone  in  the  direction  of  duaHsm,  in 
the  impersonation  of  the  hostile  powers,  and  in  the  con- 
ception of  antagonism  between  these  and  the  Great  Mother, 
we  have  no  means  of  accurately  ascertaining.  But,  as  I 
tried  to  show  you,  there  was  a  close  relationship  between 
the  religions  of  Phrygia  and  Babylonia,  a  relation,  if  not 
of  dependence,  yet  of  such  close  affinity  that,  without  much 
risk  of  error,  we  may  illustrate  that  which  is  the  less  by 
that  which  is  the  better  known  of  the  two.  Now  Professor 
Sayce  tells  us  that  the   cuneiform   records   enable  us   to 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  I3I 

distinguish  a  decided  evolution  of  dualism  in  the  Babylonian 
religion. 

"Nothing  can  show  more  plainly,"  he  says,  "the  wide 
gulf  which  lies  between  the  religions  of  pre-Semitic  and 
of  Semitic  Chaldaea,  than  the  contrast  between  the  Zikum 
of  Eridu,  the  mother  of  gods  and  men,  and  the  wicked 
Tiamat  of  the  legends,  with  her  misshapen  body  and 
malignant  mind.  In  the  watery  abyss,  in  which  the  first 
philosophers  of  Eridu  saw  the  origin  of  all  things,  there  was 
nothing  unholy,  nothing  abhorrent.  On  the  contrary,  it  was 
the  home  and  mother  of  the  great  god  Ea,  the  primal  source 
of  his  wisdom  and  of  his  benevolence  towards  men.  But 
the  watery  abyss  personified  by  the  Tiamat  of  the  poems 
belongs  altogether  to  another  category.  It  represents  all 
that  is  opposed  to  the  present  orderly  course  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  it  stands  outside  of,  and  in  opposition  to,  the  gods 
of  heaven,  and  is  thus  essentially  evil.  Not  only  has  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  evil  presented  itself  to  the  Baby- 
lonian :  he  has  found  a  solution  of  it  in  his  dragon  of 
chaos.  Elsewhere  the  same  author  says,  in  respect  to  this 
Babylonian  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  evil :  "  The 
divine  powers  which  he  worshipped  had  once  been  alike 
the  creators  of  good  and  evil,  like  the  powers  of  Nature 
which  they  represented.  They  had  at  once  been  benefi- 
cent and  malevolent.  By  degrees  these  two  aspects  of  their 
character  came  to  be  separated.  The  higher  gods  came  to 
be  looked  upon  as  the  hearers  of  prayer  and  givers  of  good 
gifts,  while  the  instruments  of  their  vengeance  and  the 
infiicters  of  suffering  and  misery  upon  man  were  the  in- 
ferior spirits  of  the  lower  sphere.  But  the  old  conception 
which  derived  both  good  and  evil  from  the  same  source 
did  not  wholly  pass  away.  Evil  never  came  to  be  regarded 
as  the  antagonist  of  good,  it  was  rather  its  necessary  com- 


132         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

plement  and  minister.  In  his  combat  with  the  dragon  of 
the  chaos  Merodach  summons  the  evil  wind  itself  to  his 
assistance ;  and  in  the  legend  of  the  assault  of  the  seven 
wicked  spirits  upon  the  moon-god,  they  are  still  called  the 
messengers  of  Anu  their  king.  The  powers  of  darkness 
are  degraded  from  their  ancient  position  of  independence, 
and  either  driven,  like  Tiamat,  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
created  world,  or  reduced  to  the  condition  of  ministers  of 
the  divine  wrath." 

You  will  easily  perceive  in  the  evolution  of  this  idea  of 
evil  three  stages.  First,  the  greater  gods  are  the  cause  of 
both  good  and  evil ;  secondly,  the  evil  phenomena  of  the 
world  are  assigned  to  distinct  deities  of  a  malignant  nature ; 
thirdly,  those  malignant  deities  are  subordinated  to  the 
good  gods  and  become  their  ministers,  occupying  very 
much  the  position  of  the  Satan  of  the  Book  of  Job.  Nov^^  I 
think  that  this  discovery  throws  new  and  unexpected  light 
on  the  growth  of  the  elementary  Gnosticism  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Colossians.  When  we  remember  the  shape  which  the 
Gnosticism  of  Asia  Minor  took  in  the  hands  of  Cerinthus, 
before  the  end  of  the  first  century,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  angels  worshipped  by  the  gnostical  Christians  at 
Colossae  were  so  many  mediators,  interposed  between  God 
and  matter,  to  make  the  creation  of  so  evil  a  thing  the  more 
tolerable  in  conception.  The  difficulty  which  they  felt  is 
obvious.  How  could  they  conceive  that  matter,  the  vehicle 
and  instrument  of  all  pain  and  lust,  came  directly  from  the 
hand  of  God  ?  Some  distance  must  be  interposed  between 
things  so  different.  Some  intermediaries  must  be  provided 
to  make  such  a  descent  conceivable.  Accordingly  there 
came  into  men's  minds  the  pecuHarly  Gnostic  idea  of  emana- 
tion. As  Bishop  Lightfoot  puts  it,  "the  Divine  Being 
germinates  as  it  were."     And  this  first  germination  produces 


THE   COLOSSI  AN    HERESY.  I33 

a  second,  which  in  its  turn  becomes  the  source  of  many 
succeeding  ones,  the  Divine  element  growing  weaker  in  each 
successive  germination.  At  length  contact  with  matter 
becomes  possible,  and  there  ensues  creation.  In  the 
system  of  Cerinthus  Christ  was  one  of  these  emanations, 
and  the  Demiurge,  or  world-Creator,  another.  .This  Demi- 
urge w^as  utterly  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  the  original 
Deity,  and  therefore  there  can  be  little  wonder  if  many  of 
the  Mosaic  laws  proceeding,  as  the  Gnostics  held,  from  the 
Demiurge  are  contrary  to  the  Divine  will.  These  imagin- 
ary mediators  between  God  and  matter  still  retain  the 
Jewish  name  of  angels  in  the  system  of  Cerinthus,  and  so 
point  back  to  the  ideas  which  stood  behind  the  angel- 
worship  at  Colossse.  But  how  came  those  ideas  to  have 
obtained  a  footing  in  that  city  at  so  early  a  period  as  the 
middle  of  the  first  century  ?  This  is  the  problem  which 
commentators  upon  this  Epistle  have  hitherto  found  so 
puzzling. 

It  has  been  usual  to  point  to  the  influence  of  the  faith 
of  ancient  Persia,  Zoroastrianism.  I  cannot  doubt  that 
Zoroastrianism  exercised  a  powerful  influence  both  in 
Babylonia  and  Asia  Minor,  for  both  these  countries  were 
long  under  the  Persian  dominion.  Still  there  is  a  funda- 
mental difference  between  the  later  faith  of  Persia  and  that 
of  the  Christian  Gnostics.  The  Persian  religion  occupied  a 
position  towards  the  problem  of  evil  which  was,  so  to  speak, 
the  more  logical.  Though  not  in  the  Zend-Avesta,  yet  in 
the  Persian  religion  of  the  age  of  Darius,  that  which  was 
known  to  Asia  Minor,  the  evil  principle  was  absolutely 
independent  of  the  good  one.  Angro-Mainyus,  the  head  of 
the  cosmical  dominion  of  evil,  fought  on  well-nigh  equal 
terms  against  Ahura-Mazda,  the  creator  and  ruler  of  the 
dominion  of  truth. 


134         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Now  this  position  was  never  assumed  by  Gnosticism, 
even  in  its  most  developed  forms.  Always  in  it  the  creator 
of  evil  was  an  emanation,  at  whatever  distance,  from  the 
good  God.  He  might  be  ignorant  of  his  Divine  Originator, 
might  even  be  antagonistic  to  Him,  but  still  he  was  never 
without  something  of  His  essence,  nor  ever  entirely  free 
from  His  dominion.  This  was  a  conception  radically  dif- 
ferent from  the  sharp  and  fundamental  dualism  of  Persia. 
The  one  could  never  have  been  derived  from  the  other. 
Whence,  then,  shall  we  say  that  the  Colossian  heresy  derived 
its  characteristic  form  and  contents?  I  believe  that  our 
recently  attained  knowledge  of  the  Babylonian  religion 
enables  us  to  give  a  very  probable  answer  to  this  question. 
I  showed  you  last  Sunday  evening  that  the  ancient  worship 
of  the  Turanians  of  Asia  Minor  had  a  very  close  affinity  to 
that  of  the  old  Turanians  of  Chaldsea.  Now  in  Asia  Minor, 
in  the  empire  of  the  Hittites,  this  worship  retained  its 
independence  for  thousands  of  years  after  it  had  been 
profoundly  modified  in  Chald^ea  by  the  Semitic  conquest 
of  that  country.  We  ought  not,  then,  to  be  astonished  when 
we  find  that  the  earth-mother  of  Phrygia  in  Roman  days 
is  far  nearer  to  the  Zikum  of  ancient  Eridu,  or  Edin,  than 
the  Istar  of  Semitic  Babylonia.  Istar  was  Zikum  reduced 
to  subordination  by  the  Semitic  feeling  of  the  supremacy  of 
Baal,  the  sun-god.  No  doubt,  after  the  Assyrian  conquest 
of  the  Hittites,  the  worship  of  the  great  mother  of  Phrygia 
was  modified  to  some  extent  by  the  Semitic  cult  of  Istar. 
But  this  modification,  however  far  it  went,  would  be  in 
the  direction,  not  of  the  Persian  independence,  but  of 
the  Semitic  subordination  of  the  ancient  mother-goddess. 
The  same  process  had  no  doubt  proceeded  to  some  extent 
also  among  the  Jews,  during  and  after  their  captivity 
in    Babylonia  and  Assyria.     They   had   there  been  made 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 35 

acquainted  with  the  kindred  Semitic  ideas  about  the  gene- 
ration of  evil  in  the  later  stage  of  their  evolution.  The 
dragon  and  evil  spirits  of  Babylonia  have  a  distinct  resem- 
blance to  the  Satan  and  serpent  of  the  Old  Testament. 
They  are  subordinate  to  the  Supreme  God,  and  though  in 
general  hostile  to  Him,  are  made  unwillingly  the  ministers 
of  His  designs.  When,  therefore,  the  Jewish  converts  of 
St.  Paul's  days  introduced  into  the  Colossian  Church  the 
idea  of  angelic  mediators,  as  intermediaries  between  the 
good  God  and  the  evil  phenomena  of  the  world,  they 
introduced  ideas  which  were  far  from  being  strange  or 
unfamiliar  either  to  the  Jewish  or  Gentile  members  of  the 
Church  at  Colossse.  We  thus  obtain,  I  think,  a  very 
probable  account  of  the  genesis  at  once  of  these  ideas,  and 
of  the  influences  which  gave  them  their  ready  acceptance. 

It  may  sound  strange,  perhaps,  to  say  that  the  Christian 
religion  itself  was  likely  to  have  under  such  circumstances 
a  very  powerful  part  in  stimulating  such  speculations.  But 
a  moment's  consideration  will  suffice,  I  think,  to  show  the 
reasonableness  of  such  a  supposition.  For  the  more  the 
idea  of  God  was  cleared  of  obscuring  and  degrading  Pagan 
suggestions,  the  more  ethical  that  idea  became,  the  more 
righteousness  took  in  it  the  place  of  power,  and  paternal 
love  of  natural  capriciousness,  the  more  intolerable  must 
the  thought  have  seemed,  to  those  who  looked  upon  matter 
as  the  source  of  lust  and  suffering,  that  God  had  been  the 
direct  Creator  of  matter.  How  could  the  God  and  Father 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  have  created  that  which  was 
believed  to  be  the  universal  basis  of  sin  and  pain  ?  Such 
was  the  question  which,  in  the  atmosphere  of  old  Phrygian 
thought,  would  inevitably  be  suggested  to  Jews  who  had 
imbibed  the  modified  dualism  of  Assyria. 

I  fear,  too,  that  amongst  these  Jewish  speculators  there 


136         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

was  another  and  a  less  worthy  motive.     Six  or  seven  years 
before  the  date  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  St.  Paul,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  fought  a  great  battle  with  the  Judaizing 
Christians  of  the  Church  of  Galatia,  who  had  required  Gentiles 
to  be  circumcised  and  to  keep  the  Law  of  Moses.     It  was, 
perhaps,  the  fiercest  and  most  momentous  battle  which  was 
ever  fought  in  the  world  in  defence  of  Christian  liberty.     On 
its  issue  it  depended  whether  men  should  be  saved  by  law 
or  by  grace  :   whether  the  Christian  Church  should  dwindle 
into  a  Jewish  sect,  or  should  become  the  religious  home 
of  the  world.     St.   Paul  triumphed ;  but  at  such  a  cost  of 
labour  and  anxiety  as  was  never  paralleled  even  in   his 
ministry  of  continued  toil  and  care.     Can  we  suppose,  then, 
that  Jewish  bitterness  and  exclusiveness  would  suffer  them- 
selves  to   be   extinguished   by   a  single   defeat,    however 
decisive  ?     Nay,  may  it  not  seem  at  first  sight  not  a  little 
unnatural  that,  so  soon  after  that  first  fierce  conflict,  we 
should   hear   so   little   as   we   do,    in  an  Epistle  directed 
against  Jewish  errors,  of  the  claims  of  circumcision,  or  of 
the  necessity  of  the  law  to  salvation  ?     So  it  might  seem, 
until  we  give  the  matter  a  little  careful  consideration.     But 
do  we  not  see  every  day  how  soon  public  interest  subsides 
in  a  question  which  has  been  irreversibly  decided  ?     Who 
cares  anything  now  about  the  contention  so  hotly  debated 
a  few  years  ago,  in  respect  to  the  Oath  or  Declaration  of 
Members  of  Parliament?   The  question  of  Electoral  Reform, 
again,  once  excited  the  whole  country  to  a  pitch  of  passion 
almost  unprecedented ;  but  who  cared  to  speak  of  it  a  few 
years  after  its  final  settlement  ?   So  was  it  with  the  question  of 
the  equality  of  Jews  and  Gentiles  in  the  Church,  when  once 
that  question  had  been   finally   settled  by  the  enormous 
increase  in  the  number  of  Gentile  Churches,  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  Apostles.      At  the  same  time  the  acute 


THE   COLOSSIAN    HERESV.  137 

remark  of  Professor  Salmon  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  in  the 
twin  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  Colossians  there  are 
plain  indications  that  this  dispute  had  not  been  long 
decided.  We  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  we  have 
as  much  right  to  every  Christian  privilege  as  the  children 
of  Abraham.  But  to  St.  Paul  when  he  wrote  these  Epistles, 
"this  truth  is  no  mere  matter  of  course,  but  an  amazing 
paradox.  He  is  still  astonished  beyond  measure,  as  he 
contemplates  the  mystery  of  Christ,  that  the  Gentiles  should 
be  fellow-heirs  and  of  the  same  body,  and  partakers  of  His 
promise  in  Christ  by  the  Gospel."  In  other  words,  the 
great  controversy  about  the  claims  of  the  law  and  of  the 
Jew  had  only  just  been  decided. 

But  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  shows  us  that  the  spirit 
of  Jewish  exclusiveness  which  had  aroused  that  former  con- 
troversy was  neither  dead  nor  disposed  to  confess  itself 
finally  defeated.  If  it  could  not  attain  its  ends  by  asserting 
the  claims  of  an  exclusive  law,  it  would  endeavour  to  reach 
the  same  goal  by  claiming  the  possession  of  a  superior 
wisdom.  The  Jew  would  be  satisfied  if  only  by  some 
means  he  could  set  himself  above  the  Gentile,  if  either  by 
means  of  law,  or  of  gnosis,  he  could  vindicate  his  claim  to 
superior  privilege,  and  so  break  down  the  universality  of 
the  Gospel.  Accordingly  we  find  that  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Colossians  St.  Paul  has  to  change  his  Hne  of  defence.  "  It 
is  no  longer,"  as  Bishop  Lightfoot  well  points  out,  "  against 
national,  but  against  intellectual,  exclusiveness  that  he  con- 
tends. It  is  not  against  the  Jew  as  such,  but  against  the 
Jew  become  Gnostic,  that  he  fights  the  battle  of  rehgious 
liberty."  The  signs  of  it  are  evident  in  every  page  of  our 
Epistle,  in  the  strenuousness  with  which  he  claims  to  "  warn 
every  man,  and  teach  every  man  in  every  wisdom,  that  he 
may  present  every  man  perfect  in  Christ  Jesus."     There  is 


138         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

no  intellectual  aristocracy  in  the  Church,  sharply  distin- 
guished from  the  common  herd  of  believers  by  the  possession 
of  special  knowledge.  Every  kind  of  knowledge  is  the  pro- 
perty of  every  man,  and  perfection  is  to  be  attained  not  by 
the  favoured  few,  but  by  the  believing  many.  It  is  in  Christ 
that  are  hidden  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge, 
and  to  them  every  man  may  obtain  access  who  outwardly 
in  baptism,  and  inw^ardly  by  faith,  comes  into  Christ,  lives 
in  Christ,  and  follows  Christ.  Christianity  is  not  an  order, 
with  its  inner  circle  of  mystagogues  and  its  outer  circle  of 
devotees  ;  but  a  brotherhood  of  spiritual  equals,  all  finding 
one  another  in  Christ,  all  teaching  and  helping  one  another 
by  the  power  of  the  same  Spirit.  No  matter  what  difficulties 
may  be  presented  by  the  evil  which  is  in  the  world,  or  by 
the  sin  which  is  in  the  heart  of  man,  we  are  not  to  seek  the 
solution  of  these  difficulties  by  denying  the  common  Head- 
ship of  Christ  or  the  universal  brotherhood  of  believers. 
These  are  great  positive  facts,  and  we  are  not  to  relax  our 
hold  upon  them  because  it  may  be  hard  to  reconcile  them 
with  certain  phenomena  in  the  world  and  in  the  Church. 

What  is  the  real  relation  between  these  phenomena  and 
those  truths  it  will  be  my  endeavour  to  point  out  in  my 
remaining  lectures ;  but  meantime  let  us  not  fail  to  learn, 
from  the  example  of  the  Colossian  Christians,  how  dangerous 
a  thing  it  may  be  to  endeavour  to  explain  the  difficulties  of 
life  from  the  resources  of  our  own  reason  alone.  Our  being 
is  more  than  our  thought.  The  contents  of  our  knowledge 
begin  in  sensations  which  we  experience,  but  cannot  explain. 
The  processes  of  our  reasoning  begin  with  axioms  which 
we  are  obliged  to  affirm,  but  cannot  prove.  How  we  have 
become  such  as  we  are,  with  just  such  a  natural  constitution 
and  such  capacities  of  thought,  will,  and  emotion  as  we 
possess,  is  a  mystery  entirely  hidden  from  us.     We  must  be 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 39 

satisfied  to  know  the  facts.  Much  more  is  our  intellect  at 
fault  when,  passing  beyond  the  contents  of  consciousness, 
it  endeavours  to  comprehend  the  real  things  from  which 
we  derive  our  impressions.  "Who  can  tell  what  those  real 
elements  of  being  are  at  which  we  throw  out  the  names 
Matter  and  Force  ?  Who  can  prove  the  objective  existence 
of  time  and  space,  of  an  eternal  world  and  of  God?  If, 
indeed,  our  intuitions  are  to  be  trusted,  we  have  a  firm 
conviction  that  such  things  exist.  But  such  proof  of  their 
existence  as  will  satisfy  the  understanding  we  have  none  to 
give.  In  a  word,  being  is  vaster  than  our  finite  intelligence, 
and  is  not  to  be  embraced  within  its  categories.  If,  there, 
fore,  the  world  and  man's  life  should  present  to  us  some 
mysteries  of  which  we  can  give  no  rational  solution,  this  is 
no  more  than  we  ought  to  expect.  No  doubt  we  are  bound 
to  do  our  utmost  to  reach  a  reasonable  explanation  of  every 
object  of  our  thought.  It  is  to  this  effort  that  the  gift  of 
reason  was  intended  to  stimulate  us.  It  is  to  this  effort, 
never  ending,  always  renewed  after  every  failure,  that  we 
owe  much  of  our  use  and  happiness.  But  let  us  beware  of 
rashness  and  arrogance ;  let  us  beware  of  the  folly  of  reject- 
ing the  deepest  truths  of  revelation  and  spiritual  experience 
because  we  cannot  readily  range  them  in  the  ranks  of  our 
logical  conclusions.  They  may  be  truths  of  so  vast  a  scope 
that  the  limits  of  our  thought  are  too  narrow  to  entertain 
them.  They  may  only  seem  to  us  to  be  imperfect  because 
the  curve  which  marks  the  limits  of  their  domain  is  too  vast 
to  be  discerned  by  us  in  its  determining  elements.  They 
may  seem  to  be  out  of  harmony  with  our  conclusions  at 
certain  points,  because  that  ultimate  harmony  involves 
elements  of  thought  too  intricate  and  multitudinous  to  be 
brought  by  us  within  a  single  field  of  vision.  The  problem 
of  evil,   whether  in   the  world  or  in  man's  life,  may  well 


140         DANGERS   OF   THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

require  for  its  solution  the  application  of  some  of  those 
transcendent  truths.  God  may,  for  instance,  be  Omnipotent 
Love,  and  evil  a  necessary  incident  of  our  finite  existence  ; 
while  yet  we  cannot  so  connect  these  facts  by  links  of 
reason  as  to  make  their  co-existence  comprehensible.  We 
are  not,  however,  on  that  account  to  be  impatient,  or  to 
deny  rashly  either  of  the  facts  because  we  cannot  discern 
the  link  of  their  rational  connection.  Let  us  remember 
humbly  the  limitation  of  our  powers  ;  and,  where  they  plainly 
fail  us,  learn  to  wait  and  be  patient. 

Is  it  not  enough  for  us  to  know,  on  the  testimony  of  Him 
who  is  more  to  us  than  reason,  that  God  is  a  loving  Father; 
that  He  has  revealed  His  heart  and  mind  to  us  in  the 
Incarnation  of  His  Son ;  that  in  Christ  we  have  life,  and 
that  He  is  the  sole  and  sufficient  Mediator  between  us  and 
Heaven  ?  Is  it  reasonable  to  deny  these  most  certain  facts 
of  our  spiritual  experience  because  they  seem  to  be  incon- 
sistent with  some  other  facts  not  more  certain  than  them- 
selves ?  Remember  the  solemn  words  of  St.  Paul :  "  Let  no 
man  rob  you  of  your  prize,  taking  his  stand  upon  the  things 
which  he  hath  seen,  vainly  puffed  up  in  his  fleshly  mind,  and 
not  holding  the  Head."  Let  us  hold  fast  to  Christ  whom  we 
know,  who  lives  within  our  soul,  who  reveals  Himself  to  us  as 
Son  of  God  and  Mediator ;  and  let  us  be  sure  that,  whatever 
disclosures  await  us  in  this  world  or  the  next,  nothing  will 
ever  shame  us  for  this  constant  faith.  What  is  doubt,  so  long 
as  Christ  is  mine  ?  What  is  earthly  darkness,  so  long  as  I 
am  filled  with  the  heavenly  light  ?  Yea,  what  even  is  evil,  so 
long  as  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  dwells  within  me,  with  regenerating 
power  ?  This  narrow  scene  of  battling  light  and  shade  is 
not  the  whole  of  life.  A  brighter  sun  shall  rise,  a  larger  day 
shall  dawn,  and  then  with  widening  powers  and  prospects  the 
mists  and  shadows  of  the  time-life  shall  haply  flee  away. 


III. 

We  saw  last  Sunday  evening  that  the  Colossian  heresy  was 
a  system  of  modified  duahsm,  having  its  inspiration  in  the 
difficulty  felt  by  Christian  men  in  attributing  to  a  God  of 
Love  the  creation  of  sin  and  pain.  Evil  they  saw  was 
twofold,  it  was  moral  and  natural :  the  evil  which  springs 
from  a  selfish  will,  and  that  which  springs  from  the  consti- 
tution of  the  universe.  These  difficulties  are  by  no  means 
the  same,  and  thus  it  will  be  convenient  for  us  to  enquire, 
in  the  two  lectures  which  remain,  how  St.  Paul  treated 
the  Gnostical  teaching  on  each  of  them. 

To-night  our  question  is :  How  did  St.  Paul  treat  that  part 
of  the  teaching  of  the  Gnostical  Christians  of  Colossae  which 
was  inspired  by  their  perception  of  natural  evil  ?  They 
taught  that  matter  was  the  seat  and  source  of  this  evil ;  and 
to  account  for  the  creation  of  a  thing  so  unblest  as  matter 
they  imagined  a  series  of  emanations  from  God,  which  they 
called  angels  or  messengers,  each  of  these  in  succession 
losing  something  of  the  Divinity  of  his  Source,  until  at  length 
a  Demiurge,  or  world-Creator,  was  developed  who  was 
sufficiently  undivine  to  bring  matter  into  existence. 

In  this  way  they  certainly  diminished  the  difficulty  of 
conceiving  that  a  God  of  love  created  natural  evil,  but  at 
the  same  time  (probably  without  intending  it)  they  challenged 
the  claim  of  Christ  to  be  the  sole  Mediator  between  God 
and  man ;  and  they  adopted  an  idea  of  the  nature  and  source 
of  evil  which  led  them   to  misconceive   its  remedy.      If 


142         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

matter  were  its  source,  then,  clearly,  an  ascetic  separation 
from  everything  material  must  be  its  cure.  And  thus  the 
redemption  of  mankind  from  evil  was  made  to  depend,  not 
on  the  communication  of  Christ's  new  life,  but  on  mere 
bodily  abstinence,  on  a  thoroughgoing  asceticism  which 
combined  the  celibacy  of  the  monk  with  modern  vegetari- 
anism and  total  abstinence. 

Now  how  did  the  Apostle  deal  with  these  new  opinions  ? 
Not  as  we  do,  by  considering  their  possible  reasonableness, 
or  the  nature  of  the  objections  which  they  were  intended 
to  obviate,  but  by  confronting  them  with  those  truths  of 
the  Christian  faith  with  which  they  came  into  collision. 
His  argument  is  shortly  this  :  "  I  know  that  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  is  true.  I  know  it  historically,  experimentally,  and 
by  the  special  teaching  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  What,  then, 
contradicts  its  fundamental  verities  must  be  false.  But 
your  system  of  angelic  emanations  and  bodily  austerities 
does  contradict  those  fundamental  verities.  Therefore  it  is 
false,  and  to  be  rejected  by  all  true  believers.  There  is  no 
such  evolved  Demiurge  as  you  imagine :  for  He  '  who  is 
the  image  of  the  invisible  God '  is  also  the  Firstborn  of  all 
creation ;  for  in  Him  were  all  things  created,  in  the  heavens 
and  upon  the  earth,  things  visible  and  things  invisible  (things 
material  as  well  as  things  spiritual),  whether,  to  adopt  your 
language,  they  be  thrones  or  dominions  or  principalities 
or  powers — all  things  (matter  included)  have  been  created 
through  Him  and  unto  Him  (through  His  power  and  unto  the 
furtherance  of  His  designs),  and  '  in  Him  all  things  hold 
together,'  continuing  in  Him  even  as  they  originated  from 
Him."  St.  Paul  will  have  no  duaUsm.  He  will  tolerate  no 
rival  to  his  Master  on  the  mediatorial  throne.  Christ  is  all, 
and  in  all ;  matter  is  His  not  less  than  spirit ;  and  redemp- 
tion is  to  be  had,  not  in  separation  from  matter,  but  in 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 43 

communion  with  Him.  Thus  the  whole  Gnostical  heresy 
is  torn  up  by  the  roots,  duaHsm  is  discarded,  and  the  unity 
of  the  Godhead  is  affirmed  in  scorn  of  all  consequences. 
I  think  one  may  say  without  fear  that  this  theology  of 
St.  Paul  is  the  only  theology  which  can  be  consistent  with 
the  discoveries  of  modern  science.  Vv^ith  such  truths  before 
us  as  the  constancy  of  the  quantity  of  matter,  the  conservation 
of  energy,  the  identity  of  the  material  in  sun  and  earth 
and  stars,  the  vast  scope  and  range  of  cosmical  laws,  and 
the  transference  even  of  forms  of  life  from  planet  to  planet, 
we  see  that  the  universe  is  a  unity,  and  that  if  it  had  an 
Author  it  could  have  no  more  than  one.  As  Mr.  Cox  has 
truly  said  :  "  There  may  be  one  God,  that  to  science  is  an 
open  question ;  but  more  than  one  there  cannot  be ;  that 
question  is  closed,  and  science  herself  stands  to  guard  the 
way  to  it,  with  a  drawn  sword  in  her  hand." 

But  now,  do  you  see  what  you  have  done  ?  some  may  be 
ready  to  answer.  Do  you  not  see  that,  by  agreeing  with 
what  you  call  the  common  conclusion  of  St.  Paul  and  science, 
you  have  brought  back  the  whole  terrible  problem  of 
natural  evil  upon  us,  with  all  its  tormenting  and  unresolved 
contradictions  ?  Yes,  I  know  that  I  have,  but  what  then  ? 
Is  it  not  better  to  face  a  difficulty  than  to  accept  a  false 
solution  of  it  ?  Nay,  even  on  the  lower  ground  of  utility, 
is  it  not  better  to  have  a  Living,  Omnipotent  Saviour,  the 
Lord  of  earth  and  heaven,  of  good  and  evil,  than  battling 
gods  in  the  heaven  above  and  on  the  earth  beneath,  with 
some  false  alleviation  of  a  difficulty  ? 

Yes,  but  I  may  be  asked,  "How  are  you  going  to  deal  with 
that  difficulty  which,  like  a  horrible  monster,  stands  with 
threatening  roar  before  the  gates  of  the  moral  Paradise  ?  "  I 
acknowledge  that  the  difficulty  is  a  formidable  one,  and  that 
it  has  lost  none  of  its  terrors  for  the  strongest  thinkers  of 


144         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

modern  days.  One  of  the  latest  and  one  of  the  most 
popular  works  of  German  philosophy,  Von  Hartmann's 
"  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious,"  is  little  else  than  a  long 
exhibition  of  the  proofs  of  natural  evil.  As,  however,  our 
own  great  thinker,  J.  S.  Mill,  must  be  better  known  to  you, 
and  as  he  states  the  revulsion  of  a  keen  moral  sense  against 
the  manifold  evils  of  the  world  as  strongly  as  possible,  it 
may  be  convenient  to  present  our  difficulty  in  his  own  vivid 
words.  He  sees  Nature  as  the  Poet  Laureate  did,  "  red 
everywhere  in  tooth  and  claw."  "  If,"  says  he,  "  there  be 
any  marks  at  all  of  special  design  in  creation,  one  of  the 
things  most  evidently  designed  is  that  a  large  proportion  of 
all  animals  should  pass  their  existence  in  tormenting  and 
devouring  other  animals.  They  have  been  lavishly  fitted 
out  with  the  instruments  necessary  for  that  purpose,  their 
strongest  instincts  impel  them  to  it,  and  many  of  them  seem 
to  have  been  constructed  incapable  of  supporting  themselves 
by  any  other  food."  Such  is  the  impression  received  in  the 
world  of  life.  If  now  we  turn  to  the  inorganic  forces  of 
Nature,  do  we  find  the  prospect  more  inviting  ?  No,  says 
Mr.  Mill ;  there  matters  are,  if  possible,  worse.  "  A  single 
hurricane  destroys  the  hopes  of  a  season  ;  a  flight  of  locusts, 
or  an  inundation,  desolates  a  district ;  a  trifling  chemical 
change  in  an  edible  root  starves  a  million  of  people.  Every- 
thing, in  short,  which  the  worst  men  commit,  either  against 
life  or  property,  is  perpetrated  on  a  larger  scale  by  natural 
agents."  It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  draw  a  stronger 
indictment  against  the  actual  order  of  Nature,  or  to  feel  and 
express  a  deeper  horror  at  the  spectacle  which  that  order 
presents.  In  ruder  days,  when,  as  hunters,  men  slew  their 
own  food,  and  even  worshipped  by  means  of  animal  sacri- 
fices, the  spectacle  of  death  was  so  common  that  it  scarcely 
attracted  notice.     And  even  if  floods  and  storms,  famines  or 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 45 

earthquakes,  shook  men's  souls  and  desolated  their  homes, 
it  was  so  easy  for  them  to  conceive  the  existence  of  male- 
ficent gods,  that  a  plausible  explanation  of  such  calamities 
was  found  without  difficulty.  But  now,  when  the  idea  of 
many  gods  has  become  impossible,  and  almost  equally  so 
the  conception  of  any  God  but  one  of  love  ;  when  a  wor- 
ship devoid  of  sacrifices,  and  a  horror  of  causing  misery  and 
death  have  created  the  habit,  almost  the  instinct,  of  merciful 
feeling ;  we  cannot  listen  to  such  an  enumeration  of  horrors 
as  Mr.  Mill  sets  before  us,  without  an  inward  shrinking  and 
moral  revulsion.  We,  too,  ask,  as  the  Colossian  heretics 
asked  of  old.  Can  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  do  all  this  ?  And  if  not,  by  w^hom  or  by  what  is  it 
done  ?  By  accident  it  cannot  be  ;  for  w^hatever  else  it  may 
be,  this  universe  is  at  least  a  universe  of  order,  and  the  days 
do  but  multiply  as  they  pass  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  a 
Presiding  Mind.  But  is  that  Mind  Omnipotent  ?  Is  it  able 
to  impose'  its  will  upon  all  its  creatures  ?  or  may  we  suppose 
some  limitations  to  God's  power  imposed  by  hostile  will  or 
intractable  materials  ?  We  cannot  laugh  this  ancient  idea 
of  the  Christian  Gnostics  out  of  court,  for  it  has  actually 
seemed  possible  to  one  of  the  foremost  of  our  thinkers. 

Hume,  in  his  "  Dialogues  concerning  Natural  Religion," 
makes  the  representative  of  orthodoxy  concede  that  the 
Divine  beneficence,  though  it  be  guided  by  wisdom,  is  yet 
limited  by  necessity.  Whereupon  the  sceptic  retorts  that, 
"  if  we  take  the  world  as  it  is,  we  should  rather  regard  it  as 
the  first  attempt  of  a  God  who  is  a  novice,  or  as  the  weak 
production  of  a  God  who  had  grown  old ;  indeed,  even  the 
idea  of  a  plurality  of  makers,  who  had  been  counterworking 
each  other,  might  have  something  to  say  for  itself."  Mr. 
Mill,  speaking,  however,  with  far  more  reverence,  thinks 
that  dualism,  at  least,  may  have  a  good  deal  to  say  for 

10 


146         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

itself.  Three  essays  of  his  on  Rehgion  were  published  after 
his  death.  In  the  two  former  of  these  he  only  suggests 
dualism  as  a  possible  hypothesis.  In  the  first  he  says  :  "  It 
may  be  possible  to  believe  with  Plato  that  perfect  goodness, 
limited  and  thwarted  in  every  direction  by  the  intractable- 
ness  of  the  material,  has  done  this  because  it  could  do  no 
better."  In  the  second  essay  he  says :  "  It  is  possible  to 
hold  a  belief  which  regards  Nature  and  Life,  not  as  the 
expression  throughout  of  the  character  and  purpose  of  the 
Deity,  but  as  the  product  of  a  struggle  between  contriving 
goodness  and  an  intractable  material,  as  was  believed  by 
Plato,  or  a  principle  of  evil,  as  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
Manichceans."  In  the  third  essay,  however,  written  more 
than  ten  years  later,  and  containing  his  own  mature  ideas 
upon  this  subject,  Mr.  Mill  rejects  the  idea  of  a  principle 
of  evil,  and  adopts  that  of  the  limitation  of  God's  power  by 
an  intractable  material ;  with  the  alternative  that  perhaps 
the  evil  consequences  arose  less  from  the  hindrance  of  the 
material  than  from  defect  in  the  skill  of  the  Creator.  Thus 
we  are  left  with  a  decided  dualism,  having  on  the  one  side 
a  God  of  great  but  not  unbounded  power  and  wisdom,  and 
on  the  other  an  intractable  matter  which  He  did  not  create, 
and  cannot  wholly  adapt  to  His  purposes. 

A  very  remarkable  work,  entitled  "  The  Gospel  of  a  Poor 
Soul,"  which  was  published  about  fifteen  years  ago  at  Leipsic, 
approaches  the  problem  of  evil  in  another  way.  It  makes 
God  and  the  world  absolutely  independent  of  one  another, 
God  not  even  striving,  as  in  the  hypothesis  of  Mr.  Mill,  to 
subordinate  the  world  to  His  purposes.  It  may  be  said  to 
be  a  form  of  Gnosticism,  such  as  naturally  develops  itself 
in  the  mind  of  a  Christian  of  the  present  day  who  holds  a 
materialistic  theory  about  the  nature  of  the  world.  In  it, 
God  is  represented  as  the  Personal  Love  who  gives  Himself 


THE    COLOSSI  AN    HERESY.  1 47 

to  the  pious  heart  for  its  help  and  comfort.  But  though 
rehgion  knows  this  God  as  her  God,  she  does  not  recognise 
in  Him  the  Creator  of  the  world.  With  the  world,  indeed, 
either  in  its  origin  or  its  order,  He  has  nothing  to  do.  The 
world  is  nothing  but  a  mechanism  of  blindly-concurring 
forces.  By  accident,  but  by  accident  alone,  the  movements 
of  this  mechanism  are  favourable  to  those  who  love  and 
follow  God.  God  foresaw  that  this  would  be  so,  and  He 
reveals  the  fact  to  those  who  love  Him ;  though  it  was  not 
brought  about  by  His  pre-arrangement.  The  world  is  inde- 
pendent of  God,  and  God  of  the  world.  No  doubt  this 
theory  removes  from  the  Creator  the  reproach  of  all  that 
natural  evil  over  which  pessimists  make  their  moan  ;  but 
then,  on  the  other  hand,  how  can  we  ever  reasonably  co- 
ordinate the  ideas  which  it  puts  before  us  ?  How  can  we 
think  of  a  God  who  is  infinite  activity  remaining  an  idle 
spectator  of  the  immeasurable  activities  of  the  universe  ? 
Or  even  if  we  could  think  this  unthinkable  thing,  how  could 
we  ever  thus  find  satisfaction  for  the  wants  of  our  heart  ? 
We  need  a  God  who  can  restrain  our  will  in  the  midst  of 
sensuous  allurements,  and  who  can  restore  the  force  which 
we  have  lost  by  selfish  indulgence.  And  how  can  such 
restraint  be  exercised,  or  such  redemption  accomplished,  by 
a  God  who  has  no  contact  with  the  world  and  no  control 
of  its  forces  ? 

Weisse  and  Rothe,  two  modern  German  philosophers,' 
have  so  far  modified  this  idea  as  to  make  God  the  Creator 
of  matter,  without  becoming  its  Omnipotent  Ruler  and 
Orderer.  "  Matter,"  says  Weisse,  "  as  the  externalized  will 
of  God,  has  come  to  be  in  conflict  with  His  personal  will ;  " 
and  God  cannot  terminate  this  conflict  at  once  by  a  mere 
exercise  of  volition,  but  can  only  transform  the  hostile 
element  gradually,  in  the  course  of  history.     Matter  is  called 


148         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

by  Rothe  the  non-Ego  of  God.  It  is  the  source  of  all  that 
is  felt  in  the  world  as  evil.  But  in  a  sense  its  existence  is 
a  necessity.  Its  removal,  and  with  it  the  evil  which  it 
carries,  can  only  be  effected  by  God's  introducing  into  it 
the  spirituality  of  His  Ego.  This,  however,  will  be  a  long 
and  tedious,  nay  unending,  process ;  for  after  all  Divine 
efforts  there  will  always  remain  over  a  kind  of  slag  of 
untransformed  matter,  a  residuum  not  disposed  of,  which 
necessitates  an  endless  series  of  new  world-creations.  Here, 
again,  we  have  the  vicious  dualism  of  the  early  Gnostics, 
refined,  indeed,  in  form,  but  by  no  means  abolished ; 
for  God  is  conceived  in  both  systems  to  have  evolved 
from  Himself,  by  the  process  of  emanation,  an  element 
which  is  outside  Him  and  beyond  His  control.  There 
is  something  in  this  world  of  speculation  which  limits 
God,  which  defies  Him,  and  which  is  not  subordinated  to 
that  Divine  Word  by  whom  and  unto  whom  all  things  were 
created. 

Drobisch,  another  German  philosopher,  tries  to  bring  this 
intractable  matter  into  closer  relation  to  God,  by  conceiving 
it  to  consist  of  a  number  of  what  he  calls  "  independent 
reals,"  originally  contained  in  God,  but  gaining  a  certain 
independence  by  going  forth  from  Him.  It  is  in  this  their 
independence  that  they  have  developed  what  we  call  natural 
evil.  Still,  they  remain  connected  with  God  by  means  of 
certain  mediating  existences  (as  the  Gnostics  thought), 
whether  those  existences  be  conceived  as  analogous  to 
nerves  or  angels,  or  something  else.  But  here  again  the 
unity  of  God  is  sacrificed  in  an  effort  to  explain  the  existence 
of  evil ;  and,  in  point  of  fact,  more  difficulties  are  created 
than  are  removed.  For  if  these  imaginary  reals  be  indepen- 
dent of  God's  control,  how  are  we  to  explain  the  order  which 
we  see  in  the  world  ?  or  how,  again,  is  the  world  to  be  deli- 


THE   COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 49 

vered  from  evil  if  the  sources  of  evil  have  escaped  partially 
or  wholly  from  the  direct  sway  of  Divine  Love  ? 

I  have  laid  all  these  attempted  solutions  of  the  problem 
of  evil  before  you  that  you  may  the  better  understand  its 
difficulties,  and  apprehend  at  once  the  importance  of  the 
Colossian  heresy,  and  of  St.  Paul's  decided  rejection  of 
the  apparently  easy  escape  of  dualism.  Still,  it  is  not  to  be 
forgotten  that  the  more  decidedly  we  reject  dualism  the 
more  irrevocably  we  pledge  ourselves  to  give  some  tolerable 
account  of  the  difficulty  which  is  thus  aggravated.  If  God 
be  the  sole  Creator,  if  matter  even  be  the  work  of  His 
hand,  how  are  we  to  reconcile  the  creative  activity  of 
love  with  the  creaturely  development  of  evil  ?  I  will  endea- 
vour, so  far  as  I  can,  to  give  some  answer  to  this  inevitable 
question. 

Natural  evil  exhibits  itself,  as  we  know,  in  two  separate 
provinces  of  creation,  that  of  organic  instinct  and  that  of 
inorganic  matter ;  and  it  will  thus  be  necessary  to  consider 
the  peculiar  difficulties  presented  by  each. 

First,  it  is  objected  that  animals  are  subjected  to  pain, 
fear,  torture,  and  death  ;  nay,  that  many  of  them  are  so  con- 
stituted that  they  cannot  live  without  inflicting  these  evils 
on  one  another.  I  observe,  first,  on  such  representations  as 
these  (especially  when  made  by  thoroughgoing  pessimists), 
that  they  mislead  by  suppression.  All  the  light  and  joy  of 
Nature  are  left  out ;  and  the  effect  is  just  the  same  as  if 
you  were  to  obliterate  all  the  lights  of  a  picture  and  leave 
nothing  on  the  canvas  but  its  shadows.  The  pessimist 
refuses  to  see  all  the  lively  gestures  of  animal  delight.  He 
will  not  hear  the  gay  carolling  of  the  birds,  nor  feel  their 
natural  joy  in  the  bright  air  and  the  balmy  sunlight.  He 
will  not,  again,  perceive  the  chief  cause  of  their  happiness, 
that  it  is  not  in  any  rational  aim  and  purpose  which  they 


150         DANGERS    OF   THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

have,  but  simply  in  their  work  and  movement,  in  the  con- 
genial exercise  of  their  natural  faculties.  Man's  forecast 
of  fear  and  danger  never  troubles  them.  They  enjoy  the 
present  as  if  the  world  held  no  foe  and  the  morrow  no 
threatening.  In  one  passage  of  his  last  essay  Mr.  Mill 
remarks  this,  observing  that  "  the  mere  play  of  the  faculties 
is  a  never-ending  source  of  pleasure,"  and  that  "  this  pleasure 
when  experienced  seems  to  result  from  the  normal  work- 
ing of  the  machinery,  while  pain  usually  arises  from  some 
external  interference  with  it."  Still,  he  is  not  satisfied  that 
any  such  interference  should  take  place,  and  asks  why 
Omnipotence  could  not  prevent  it  ?  We  must  beware  here, 
I  reply,  of  the  ambiguity  which  lurks  in  the  word  Omnipo- 
tence. Omnipotence  in  God  does  not  mean  power  to  do 
anything,  but  only  to  do  anything  which  does  not  involve  a 
contradiction  in  reason.  God  cannot  lie,  nor  can  He  make 
contradictions  agree.  Bearing  this  in  mind,  then,  I  would 
ask  you  if  the  law  of  progress  is  on  the  whole  a  good  law  ? 
Is  it  likely  to  produce  the  richest  variety  of  finite  life  ? 
Does  it  offer  to  such  life  a  better  hope  of  enjoyment  than 
the  monotonous  sameness  of  unvarying  form?  Does  it 
furnish  the  best  conceivable  stimulus  to  that  effort  which 
is  joy  ?  If  these  and  the  like  questions  be  answered  in  the 
affirmative,  then  surely  it  is  not  only  conceivable,  but  pro- 
bable, that  God  should  make  this  the  law  of  His  Creation. 
But  then  if  He  did  so  He  must  Himself  comply  with  its 
condition.  The  law  limits  the  work.  To  progress,  succes- 
sively improving  generations  of  creatures  are  a  necessary 
postulate ;  and  it  follows  hence  that  there  must  be  death. 
But  if  there  must  be  death,  in  what  form,  let  us  ask,  could 
it  best  come  ?  By  the  slow  decay  of  sickness,  which  to  a 
beast  means  the  slow  agony  of  starvation;  or  like  a  flash  in 
the  stroke  of  the  hawk  or  the  tiger  ?     To  the  victim  surely 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  151 

the  latter  is  the  more  merciful  method  ;  while  to  the  slayer, 
which  is  without  man's  sensitive  sympathy  with  pain,  no 
moral  deterioration  is  involved  in  the  act  of  slaughter.  That 
men  should  love  to  kill,  that  men  should  deliberately  deaden 
their  minds  to  the  sufferings  of  the  panting  and  frightened 
creatures  which  they  hunt,  is  quite  a  different  matter.  Man 
has  no  business  to  be  Hke  the  tiger ;  and  if,  by  blunting  his 
moral  sensibility,  he  reduces  himself  to  the  level  of  a  beast 
of  prey,  beyond  all  doubt  he  becomes  the  author  of  his  own 
moral  deterioration.  In  the  case  of  the  beasts,  however, 
it  must  be  obvious  to  everyone  that  the  natural  method 
of  inflicting  death  is  the  most  merciful  which  we  can 
conceive. 

Yes,  but  we  are  reminded  that  there  is  another  depart- 
ment of  natural  evil  in  which  our  recoil  from  the  spectacle 
of  pain  is  reinforced  by  a  sense  of  moral  unfitness.  We  see 
that  Nature  inflicts  pain  and  death  upon  moral  beings  with 
an  absolutely  brutal  disregard  of  their  moral  quality.  And 
it  is  simply  for  this  reason  that  Mr.  Mill  has  spoken  of  her 
as  if  she  were  immoral.  "  Nature,"  he  urges,  "  kills.  She 
does  this  once  to  every  being  that  lives.  She  burns,  crushes, 
starves,  poisons,  tortures  by  slow  agony ;  and  she  does 
all  this  with  the  most  supercilious  disregard  both  of  mercy 
and  of  justice,  emptying  her  shafts  upon  the  best  and 
noblest  indifferently  with  the  meanest  and  worst.  In  sober 
truth,"  he  adds,  "  nearly  all  the  things  which  men  are  hanged 
or  imprisoned  for  doing  to  each  other  are  Nature's  everyday 
performances."  Now,  all  this  simply  means  that,  as  before 
man  came  into  existence,  natural  changes  take  place,  not  with 
a  view  to  our  moral  condition,  but  with  a  view  to  the  general 
stability  of  natural  order.  So  far,  then,  as  man  is  corporeal, 
and  therefore  a  part  of  Nature,  he  comes  under  the  laws 
of  their    occurrence.     Would  those,  we  may  well  ask,  who 


152         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

object   to   the   occasional   consequences  of  this  regularity 
desire   its   discontinuance?     Do   they   think   that  a  world 
where  these   physical   changes   accommodated   themselves 
accurately  to  the  millionfold  caprices  of  man's  moral  states 
would  be  a  better  world  for  us  than  that  in  which  we  live  ? 
In  such  a  world  there  would  be  no  law,  no  regularity  ;  we 
could  not  predict  to-day  what  would   happen  to-morrow. 
The  forces  of  Nature,  following  the  caprices  of  man,  would 
elude  our  intelligence  and   escape  from  our  control;  and 
man  would  become  once  more  as  much  the  slave  of  Nature 
as  he  was  in  the  days  of  his  barbarian  ignorance.     Was  it 
well,  I  ask  again,  for  God  to  give  to  Nature  that  unvarying 
order  which  should  enable  us  to  use  and  master  her  ?    Then 
is   it   absurdly   unreasonable   in  us   to  ask    God   to   make 
Nature  at  once  regular  and  irregular,  absolutely  uniform  in 
her  changes,  and  at  the  same  time  sensitively  responsive  to 
every  moral  change  in  ourselves.     Does  not  the  grotesque 
absurdity  of  such  a  demand  make  itself  obvious  at  once,  as 
soon  as  we  descend  to  details  ?     When  the  stones  of  that 
tower  in  Siloam  fell,  is  it  soberly  demanded  that  they  should 
have  had  given   to  them  a  miraculous  power  of  discrimi- 
nating the  moral  qualities  of  those  who  happened  to  be 
beneath  them,  so  as  to  spare  the  good  and  crush  the  bad  ? 
Or,  when  a  man  treads  upon  a  snake,  is  it  a  reasonable 
requirement   that   the   snake    should   have   given   to   it   a 
miraculous   power   of  discerning   whether   the  foot  which 
hurts  it  is  that  of  a  good  or  evil  man,  so  that  it  may  bite 
the  evil  and  spare  the  good  ?     Does  not  the  very  form  of 
such  questions  demonstrate  their  folly  ?     It  is  for  the  good 
of  all  God's  creatures  (men   included)  that  the  course   of 
Nature  should  be  uniform.     And  if  in  some  circumstances 
that  uniformity  should  threaten  us  with  pain  and  death, 
what  is  the  lesson  which  that  fact  should  teach  us?    To 


THE   COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 53 

murmur  at  God  and  blaspheme  Nature  ?  Nay,  rather  so  to 
act  upon  our  knowledge  of  that  uniformity  as  to  avoid  such 
danger  in  time  to  come.  An  earthquake  or  a  volcano  may 
no  doubt  destroy  a  city.  But  what  then  ?  Shall  we  demand 
the  abolition  of  those  subterranean  forces,  which,  as  we  now 
know,  have  their  salutary  ends  to  serve  ?  Or  shall  we  not 
rather  take  care  in  the  future  not  to  build  our  cities  in  the 
paths  of  volcanic  vibrations  ?  These  natural  accidents,  as 
they  are  called,  are  comparatively  rare,  and  will  become 
still  rarer  as  the  labour  of  human  thought  and  observation 
goes  on. 

Can  you  not  see,  then,  how  foolish  it  is  to  use  the  lan- 
guage of  moral  intention  in  respect  to  that  which  can  have 
no  such  intention  ?  Nature  cannot  be  im-moral  because 
she  is  un-moral.  Man's  law  is  an  "  ought  to  be ; "  and  if 
knowing  what  ought  to  be  he  does  the  opposite  he  is 
clearly  guilty.  Nature's  law,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  must  be ; 
and  therefore  she  can  do  neither  right  nor  wrong  in  follow- 
ing it.  If,  then.  Nature's  proceedings  can  form  no  rule  for 
man,  must  it  not  be  equally  true  that  to  apply  language  to 
her  proceedings  which  implies  moral  intent  can  only  be 
misleading  ? 

Nor  can  such  language  be  fitly  transferred  to  the  Great 
Author  of  Nature.  If  He  bound  Nature  fast  in  the  iron 
links  of  law,  this  was  not  only  for  the  sake  of  securing  her 
stability,  but  also  for  our  advantage.  And  to  ask  God  to 
continue  that  advantage  while  He  abolishes  it,  to  subject 
Nature  to  an  unvarying  order  while  He  makes  it  follow  the 
arbitrary  variations  of  man's  free  will,  is  to  ask  God  to  re- 
concile contradictions,  to  do  a  thing  impossible  in  its  own 
nature,  and  therefore  as  impossible  to  God  as  to  man. 

What  men  forget  in  most  of  their  speculations  about  evil 
is  this  patent  truth,  that  since  finite  things  have  their  limits, 


154         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

which,  by  excluding  other  finite  things,  give  them  pecuhar 
qualities  and  constitutions,  God  cannot  deal  with  them  as 
if  they  had  no  such  special  qualities.  All  which  we  can 
reasonably  expect  is,  that  in  determining  their  relations  to 
each  other  He  shall  minimize  the  inconveniences  and  dis- 
harmonies resulting  from  such  relations.  And  that  God 
does  this,  making  the  lights  of  life  overpower  its  shadows, 
and  the  happiness  of  life  preponderate  over  its  pain,  I 
think  we  may  see  written  plainly  across  the  whole  vast 
record  of  creation. 

It  follows,  of  course,  that  most  of  the  difficulties  in  regard 
to  natural  evil  which  are  conjured  up  and  paraded  by 
pessimistic  writers  are  manufactured  difficulties.  They 
arise  partly  from  the  limitation  of  our  powers,  partly  from 
the  lack  of  close  and  sustained  thought,  and  pardy,  I  fear 
I  must  add,  from  the  inveterate  prejudices  of  those  who 
either  through  their  fault  or  their  misfortune  have  become 
habituated  to  a  sceptical  cast  of  thought. 

Let  me  not,  however,  be  thought  either  to  undervalue 
these  difficulties  or  to  blame  unduly  those  who  have  set 
them  forth.  Their  persistent  emergence  in  so  many  sys- 
tems of  religion,  whether  among  Aryan  or  Semitic  races ; 
their  reappearance,  especially  amongst  Christians,  in  the 
Gnosticism  of  the  second  century,  the  Manichseanism  of  the 
fourth  century,  and  the  rationahsm  of  mediaeval  Provence, 
all  this  shows  that  they  have  deep  root  in  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  the  human  mind,  and  that  they  deserve  and  demand 
our  very  serious  consideration.  But  still  I  think  you  will 
agree  with  me  that  a  close  and  careful  scrutiny  tends  rather 
to  dispel  than  to  confirm  them ;  and  that  at  any  rate  our 
modern  Gnostics  go  beyond  their  right  when  they  demand 
that  we  shall  create  for  the  solution  of  such  difficulties  a 
dualistic  theory  of  the  universe.     Whatever  befalls  we  must 


THE    COLOSSI  AN    HERESY.  I  55 

stiil  hold  fast  those  fundamental  truths  with  which  such 
theorists  were  confronted  by  St.  Paul  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Colossians.  There  is  but  one  God,  and  one  Mediator 
between  God  and  man,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus.  He  is  the 
Head  of  all  principalities  and  powers,  the  Image  of  the 
Invisible  God,  the  Firstborn  of  all  creation.  All  things 
were  made  through  Him  and  unto  Him,  and  in  Him  are 
all  things  held  together.  If  there  be  evil  in  the  world, 
natural  or  moral,  it  is  not  without  His  knowledge  and 
permission ;  and  not  also,  as  I  shall  try  to  show  you  in  my 
next  lecture,  without  His  gracious  interference  for  its  aboli- 
tion. Daring  as  it  may  sound,  we  must  still  say  with  Isaiah, 
in  God's  name  :  "I  am  Jehovah,  and  there  is  none  else. 
I  form  the  light  and  create  darkness.  I  make  peace  and 
create  evil.  I  am  Jehovah  that  doeth  all  these  things." 
Easy  as  it  seems  to  clear  God  of  all  responsibility  for  sin 
and  pain,  by  affirming  the  existence  of  an  independent 
Author  of  Evil,  we  must  resist  the  temptation  to  do  so,  and 
at  any  cost  of  mental  labour  or  moral  pain  affirm  again  and 
again  Jehovah  is  El-Shaddai,  God  Almighty;  and  "what- 
ever is  done  upon  earth  He  doeth  it  Himself."  Only  thus 
can  our  God  become  our  Saviour:  "  a  very  present  Help 
in  time  of  trouble." 


IV. 

Last  Sunday  evening  we  considered  the  objections  to  the 
Divine  government  of  the  world  which  arise  out  of  the 
existence  of  natural  evil.  To-night  we  are  to  pursue  a 
similar  line  of  investigation  in  respect  to  the  existence  of 
moral  evil. 

We  have  found  that  the  Colossian  heretics  went  astray 
mainly  because  they  misconceived  the  source  and  seat  of 
evil.  They  made  evil  physical,  finding  its  origin  and  im- 
pulse in  a  matter  which,  if  not  independent  of  God,  was 
directly  under  the  control  of  beings  far  removed  from  Him 
in  will  and  wisdom.  If,  then,  evil  was  to  be  banished  by 
human  effort,  it  must  be  by  withdrawing  as  far  as  possible 
from  all  contact  with  matter,  by  fleshly  abstinence,  and 
severities  to  the  body.  These  practices  we  found  were 
ethically  valueless,  because  they  were  based  on  a  doctrine 
which  was  speculatively  untrue.  True  evil,  namely  moral 
evil,  is  neither  physical  nor  metaphysical.  We  are  not 
evil  because  we  have  a  material  body  liable  to  sickness, 
passionate  disturbance,  pain  and  death.  Neither,  again, 
are  we  evil,  as  some  metaphysicians  have  taught,  because 
we  are  finite.  Finiteness  may  be  defect  as  compared  with 
infinity,  but  defect  is  something  different  in  kind  from 
wickedness.  A  creature  may  be  of  limited  powers,  and 
still  morally  good  within  his  limitations.  To  call  him  evil 
because  he  is  material  or  finite  is  to  apply  the  language  of 
moral  intention  to  that  which  is,  in  its  nature,  non-moral. 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  157 

It  is  to  abuse  language,  and  manufacture  difficulties.  INIoral 
evil  can  only  arise  in  a  will  which  is  free  to  choose  be- 
tween two  courses,  the  one  opposed  to  the  law  of  the 
creaturely  constitution,  and  the  other  in  accordance  there- 
with. We  have  such  a  will,  and  it  requires  but  little 
reflection  to  convince  ourselves  that  it  is  the  ordinance  of 
our  Creator  that  we  should  act  under  the  impulse  and 
direction  of  love  in  all  our  relations  to  God  and  man.  If, 
then,  knowing  and  feeling  this,  we  deliberately  choose  to 
be  selfish  rather  than  loving,  we  become  evil,  and  fall 
under  the  dominion  of  guilt  and  sinful  desire. 

But  now,  if  we  agree  to  this  definition  of  moral  evil,  it 
becomes  necessary  to  acknowledge  that  the  whole  world 
lies  in  wickedness.  All  human  wills  choose  to  do  wrong 
in  greater  or  less  degree ;  the  whole  human  race,  in  other 
words,  has  rebelled  against  the  law  of  its  Creator,  and  has 
incurred  all  the  terrible  consequences  of  such  disobedience, 
as  remorse,  pain,  aversion  from  God,  and  continually  in- 
creasing moral  depravation. 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  if  God  be  the  Omnipotent 
Ruler  and  Creator  of  mankind,  did  He  permit  this  ? 
Suppose  that  we  acquit  Him,  as  in  reason  w^e  must,  of  all 
active  participation  in  this  rebellion  against  His  own  laws, 
why  yet,  it  is  asked,  did  God  create  man  free  when  He 
must  have  foreseen  all  the  terrible  consequences  of  free- 
dom ?  This  is  really  the  question  which  lurks  at  the  heart 
of  all  that  loudly  expressed  dissatisfaction  with  the  present 
constitution  of  the  world  of  which  I  gave  you  specimens 
last  week. 

Let  us  then  endeavour,  as  best  we  may,  to  see  what  real 
weight  and  meaning  there  are  in  this  question.  It  contains 
in  effect  two  accusations  against  the  Almighty  Maker  of 
man,  first,  that  He  gave  to  His  creature  a  free  will ;  and 


158         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

secondly,  that  by  establishing  the  law  of  heredity,  or  of 
transmission  of  qualities,  He  made  it  certain  that  evil 
having  once  obtained  a  place  in  our  volitional  habits,  would 
be  indefinitely  spread  and  perpetuated. 

Our  first  question  is  :  Why  did  God  make  moral  evil  a 
possibility  ?  Because,  I  reply.  He  could  not  create  a  being 
free  from  the  constraint  of  instinct,  without  leaving  that 
possibility  open.  Either,  then,  God  must  have  restrained 
the  ascent  of  being  upon  the  earth  within  the  low  limits  of 
instinct ;  either  He  must  have  prevented  it  from  rising  to  the 
lofty  level  of  moral  consciousness  ;  or  He  must  have  left  the 
choice  of  evil  a  possibility.  Had  it  been  better,  then,  if  God 
had  refrained  from  impressing  on  men  the  image  of  His 
own  Divine  Freedom  ?  AVe  will  suffer  Rousseau  to  answer 
that  question.  "  To  murmur,"  he  says,  "  because  God  does 
not  hinder  man  from  doing  evil,  is  to  murmur  because  He 
made  him  of  an  excellent  nature,  and  attached  to  his  actions 
the  moral  character  which  ennobles  them.  .  .  .  What !  in 
order  to  prevent  man  from  being  wicked  must  he  needs  be 
confined  to  instinct  and  made  a  brute  ?  No,  God  of  my 
soul,  never  will  I  reproach  Thee  for  having  made  it  in  Thine 
own  image,  that  I  might  be  free,  good,  and  happy  like  Thy- 
self." Let  it  be  admitted,  if  you  will,  that  freedom  means  a 
possible  fall,  nay,  that  freedom  is  in  itself  in  some  sort  a 
temptation,  seeing  that  he  who  feels  the  stirring  of  selfish- 
ness within  him  must  needs  be  tempted  to  prove  the 
reality  of  his  liberty,  by  doing  what  the  law  forbids,  still, 
while  recognizing  this,  and  with  a  full  historical  knowledge, 
moreover,  of  all  the  ills  with  which  the  abuse  of  freedom 
has  afflicted  humanity,  I  say  deliberately  that  if  God  offered 
me  instinct  with  security,  or  freedom  with  danger,  I  would 
choose  freedom. 

But  then,  it  may  be  urged,  What  have  you  to  say  about 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 59 

the  laws  of  heredity  and  solidarity  ?  Had  it  not  been  better 
to  dispense,  at  least,  with  these  ?  I  unhesitatingly  answer, 
No.  I  am  of  the  mind  of  that  heathen  forefather  of  mine, 
who,  when  told  that  baptism,  while  giving  him  heaven, 
would  separate  him  from  his  dearest,  deliberately  refused 
it.  And  at  the  prompting  of  what  motive  ?  Of  that  which 
made  St.  Paul  exclaim,  "I  could  wish  myself  accursed 
from  Christ  for  my  brethren,"  of  that  which  struck  out 
from  the  travailing  soul  of  Moses  the  glorious  words, 
"  Spare  these,"  these  foolish  straying  sheep  "  or  blot  me, 
I  pray  Thee,  out  of  the  book  which  Thou  hast  written."  It 
is  in  sympathy  with  such  words  as  these  that  we  feel  and 
know  the  law  of  solidarity  to  be  the  prime  condition  of 
human  blessedness,  because  it  is  no  other  than  the  law 
of  love. 

And  now  let  us  not  forget,  as  men  are  so  apt  to  do,  that 
this  law  operates  in  both  directions,  to  facilitate  the  trans- 
mission of  good  as  well  as  of  evil  influences.  For  solidarity 
means  that  humanity  is  a  sensitive  organism,  the  seat  of  a 
single  life,  feeling  the  impulse,  responding  to  the  influence, 
and  thrilling  to  the  pain  or  pleasure  of  each  of  its  members. 
If,  therefore,  every  evil  influence  can  propagate  itself  through- 
out the  whole  ocean  of  human  feeling,  just  as  every  vibration 
of  the  light-aether  can  to  the  utmost  confines  of  that  world- 
embracing  medium,  so  also  can  every  impulse  for  good.  If 
the  spring  of  love  be  in  me,  this  law  secures  to  it  free 
course,  and  illimitable  influence.  Then  I  know  that  for 
every  loving  choice  of  mine,  the  whole  world  of  humanity 
is  waiting !  What  a  dignifying,  what  an  intensifying, 
what  an  enlarging,  of  my  moral  life  is  here !  How  it 
elevates  the  motive  of  every  action ;  how  it  opens  all  the 
floodgates  of  that  glorious  enthusiasm  of  humanity,  which 
every   heroic  soul  has  felt !      How  it  justifies   what  some 


l6o         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

have  called  the  quixotic  Christian  impulse  of  fraternity  ! 
Let  the  worst  come,  I  say,  let  the  heavens  fall,  life  is  still 
worth  living  if  it  have  such  splendid  issues  as  this  !  When 
a  true  thought,  which  is  also  a  deep  and  great  one,  gets 
once  breathed  upon  the  air,  this  law  secures  to  it  an 
indestructible  vitality ;  for  there  is  something  in  the  heart 
of  man  which  rises  up  to  greet  it,  to  welcome  it,  and  to 
rejoice  in  it;  just  as  the  plants  do  when  they  throw  out 
their  triumphant  garlands  of  flowers  to  hail  the  coming 
of  the  vernal  sun.  Not  only  -physiology,  but  much  more 
comparative  philology,  and  in  these  last  days  comparative 
religion  also,  have  been  combining  to  force  this  conception 
upon  the  understanding  and  heart  of  the  world.  We  would 
not  part  with  it  if  we  could.  We  would  not  break  ourselves 
off  from  the  great  life  of  our  toiling  and  suffering  kind, 
even  if  by  so  doing  we  could  escape  the  thousand  ills 
w^hich  a  community  of  nature  and  interest  brings  along 
with  it. 

Yes,  but  I  may  be  asked  here.  Could  not  a  wise 
Omnipotence  have  given  us  this  high  prerogative  of 
freedom,  and  this  quick  participation  in  the  sensitive  life 
of  humanity,  and  yet  have  lightened  for  us  the  load  of  moral 
evil,  or  opened  to  us  at  least  a  brighter  pathway  to  moral 
restoration  ?  If  the  high  gift  of  freedom  must  become  the 
fatal  spring  of  that  torrent  of  evil  which,  like  a  dark  river 
of  death,  has  filled  the  whole  course  of  man's  history, 
might  not  the  Divine  love  have  erected  somewhere  a 
barrier  against  its  destructiveness  ?  It  may,  I  answer,  have 
been  just  and  necessary  for  God  to  make  man  innocent, 
and  to  leave  him  to  win  perfection  for  himself  through  fall 
and  struggle.  When  once,  indeed,  the  will  to  live,  as 
Schopenhauer  calls  it,  had  mastered  the  will  to  love,  the 
only  way  of  salvation  was  obviously  the  way  of  self-denial, 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  l6l 

True  as  beautiful  is  the  address  of  Goethe  to  the  sinful 
soul — 

•'  Till  this  truth  thou  knowest, 
Die  to  live  again  ; 
Stranger-like  thou  goest, 
In  a  world  of  pain." 

And  perhaps  to  the  first  transgressors  there  may  have  ap- 
peared as  much  hope  as  beauty  in  such  words.  Death  unto 
a  sin  recently  indulged  may  to  them  have  seemed  not  wholly 
impossible.  But  how  is  it  with  us,  who  came  into  the 
world,  as  we  too  well  know,  with  the  yoke  of  evil  passions 
bound  on  us  by  the  law  of  heredity,  with  a  will  fatally 
weakened,  and  with  selfish  lusts  raging  for  satisfaction  with 
the  accumulated  force  of  ages  of  indulgence  ?  What  is  liberty 
to  us,  in  such  circumstances,  but  liberty  to  do  wrong  ?  What 
is  fraternity  to  us,  but  fraternity  in  a  common  impulse  and 
sentiment  of  inordinate  selfishness  ?  Can  it  be  just,  then, 
for  God,  who  made  us  what  we  are,  and  set  us  in  the 
concourse  of  all  these  tyrannous  impulses,  to  require  us  to 
master  our  inherited  vices  by  the  effort  of  an  enfeebled 
will  ?  Having  given  us  a  nature,  weak  at  the  first,  and  so 
plastic  to  evil  impressions  that  these  once  made  must 
needs  pass  into  forces  of  habit,  is  it  just  in  Him  to  require 
us  to  struggle  up  by  our  own  strength  alone,  and  with 
palsied  hands  to  defeat  His  enemies  and  ours  ?  How  are 
those  going  to  answer  this  question  who  deny  the  possibility 
of  Divine  revelation  and  the  reality  of  Divine  succour  ?  No 
revelation  is  there,  no  inspiration,  no  inbreathing  of  a 
spiritual  might  which  may  potentialize  our  feebleness, 
nothing  but  what  man  can  win  for  himself,  in  the  nightmare 
of  that  dim  futility  to  which  heredity  has  reduced  us  ? 
How  can  you  wonder,  then,  that  men  like  Mill,  who  believe 
this,  cry  out  in  shrieking  exasperation  against  the  injustice 


1 62  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

of  God  ?  They  dwell  in  the  horror  of  a  great  darkness 
because  with  their  own  hands  they  have  blotted  out  the 
sun  of  God's  redeeming  love  from  the  heaven  of  their 
thoughts  and  hopes. 

Oh,  my  brethren,  groaning  and  struggling  among  the 
distracted  confusions  of  our  time,  Hfe  is  tolerable  to  me 
because  I  believe  that,  while  God  foresaw  and  permitted  all 
which  has  happened.  He  at  the  same  time  determined,  or 
ever  the  world  was,  to  make  man's  sin  the  occasion  of  such 
a  display  of  His  love  as  should  dazzle  the  eyes  of  the  bright 
sons  of  the  morning,  and  fill  all  heaven  with  praise.  I  am 
not  afraid  to  say  wath  Krause  that  God  felt  the  pain  of  His 
poor  children  who  had  wilfully  cast  themselves  into  selfish 
misery ;  and  that  this  sympathy  with  sinners  only  failed  to 
produce  unblessedness  in  the  heart  of  our  tender  Father, 
because  along  with  the  pain,  and  stimulated  by  it,  came 
the  resolve,  by  an  act  of  infinite  and  ineffable  sacrifice,  to 
rescue  them  from  misery  and  restore  them  to  life.  Down 
all  the  long  ages  of  the  past  this  redeeming  purpose  was 
silently  working  towards  its  end ;  the  Divine  Word  lighting 
with  the  beams  of  His  truth,  and  sustaining  by  the  force  of 
His  sympathy,  the  generations  which  only  knew  Him  as  an 
inward  voice.  And  then,  in  the  fulness  of  the  times,  when 
the  world's  teachers  were  able  to  receive  the  truth,  and  the 
world's  multitudes  had  been  taught  the  need  for  it,  God 
sent  forth  His  Only  Begotten  Son,  clothed  with  visible 
flesh  and  speaking  with  man's  voice,  to  take  up  for  us  the 
great  battle  against  evil,  and  to  bring  it  to  a  triumphant 
issue.  Further,  He  did  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  glorify  all  the 
laws  which  He  had  established.  His  Son  should  come 
under  the  great  law  of  solidarity.  Man  amongst  men.  He 
should  feel  the  full  force  and  horror  of  evil.  No  favour 
should  be  shown  Him.     Down  into  the  depths  where  the 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 63 

lowest  lie  should  He  come,  down  into  the  very  focus  of  all 
evil  forces,  there  to  fight  His  awful  battle,  to  be  tempted, 
to  be  grieved,  to  be  oppressed  as  never  a  Job  or  a  Paul  was, 
and  to  win  to  the  shore  of  victory,  if  He  won  thither  at  all, 
against  the  full  stress  of  all  the  stormy  tides  of  evil.  How 
He  fought  that  battle  ;  how  He  fainted  in  the  stress  and 
darkness  of  it ;  how,  beaten  to  His  knee  by  hosts  of  mighty 
foes,  He  yet  struggled  up  again,  and  with  the  flaming  sword 
of  love  smote  unto  death  him  that  had  the  power  of  death  ; 
all  this  is  written  in  the  story  of  His  life. 

But  what  most  it  concerns  us  to  notice  is  this,  that 
whatever  was  done  by  Him,  was  done  for  mankind  as  a 
whole.  Christ,  we  are  told,  was  a  new  Adam,  the  Father 
of  a  new  race,  the  Head  and  Source  of  a  new  Creation, 
which  should  derive  from  Him,  in  the  second  birth  of 
faith,  a  Diviner  nature,  a  pure  opulent  life  potentialized  by 
the  spirit  of  His  love.  But  just  because  this  life  is  moral 
in  its  impulse  and  its  nature,  it  cannot  be  taken  physically 
like  the  life  of  the  body,  but  must  be  received  voluntarily 
in  each  case  through  the  illimitable  trust  and  self-surrender 
of  faith.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  life  for  all,  seeing  that  self- 
surrender  to  Christ  is  possible  for  all.  Not  because  a  man 
is  a  Jew,  or  a  prince,  or  a  philosopher,  but  because  he 
is  a  man,  having  the  nature  which  Jesus  assumed  and 
enlarged  and  ennobled  and  bore  triumphantly  through 
death  to  the  throne  of  the  Eternal,  we,  the  humble  servants 
of  the  Lord,  are  bidden  to  offer  to  him  a  full  and  free 
redemption,  on  the  sole  condition  that  by  trustful  self- 
surrender  he  becomes  one  spirit  with  Christ.  This  law  of 
solidarity  within  the  Church  seems  never  to  have  been 
absent  from  St.  Paul's  thought.  He  cannot  too  frequently 
repeat  that  all  our  highest  blessings  are  gained  and  kept 
in   Christ.      "I  live,"  he  said  of   himself,    "and  yet    not 


164         DANGERS    OF   THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  And  what  was  true  of 
himself  was  no  less  true  of  his  Colossian  brethren.  "  Ye 
died,"  he  cries,  died  to  the  old  selfish  evil,  "  and  your  hfe 
is  hid  with  Christ  in  God."  If  it  were  the  good  pleasure  of 
the  Father  "  that  in  Christ  should  all  the  pleroma,"  all  the 
fulness  of  the  Divine  perfections,  dwell,  it  was  not  less  true 
that  "  in  Him  ye  are  made  full,"  full  of  the  very  life  of 
God,  of  that  grace  which  is  "  Christ  in  you,  the  hope 
of  glory."  Nor  may  we  confine  the  operation  of  this  law 
to  the  limits  of  the  Church.  It  has  an  effect,  both  retro- 
spective and  universal.  Christ  is  "  the  light  .which  lighteth 
every  man  coming  into  the  world."  If  there  were  any  true 
religious  thought,  or  any  deep  religious  feeling,  in  the  ages 
of  preparation,  to  that  Divine  Word  which  spake  as  a  still 
small  voice  in  the  heart's  depths  was  it  due.  It  was  this 
Voice  of  God  which  spoke,  in  Creation  and  Providence, 
those  words  of  wisdom  and  love  in  which  men  (had  they 
but  listened  with  attentive  ear)  might  have  caught  the 
declaration  "  of  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead."  It  was 
this  Divine  Word,  anointed  of  God  to  be  man's  Redeemer, 
who  as  truly  came  near  to  the  Gentile  in  signs  of  natural 
beauty  and  order,  in  testimonies  of  conscience,  and  mutual 
moral  questionings,  as  to  the  Jew  in  types  and  shadows  and 
prophetic  pre-intimations. 

Are  we  disposed  perchance  to  murmur  because  it  seems 
to  us  that  the  full  declaration  of  God's  redeeming  will  was 
too  long  delayed?  How  can  we  tell,  I  answer,  what  men 
were  ready  to  receive  ?  Might  it  not  rather  seem,  from  the 
after  fortunes  of  the  Gospel,  as  if  Christ  had  anticipated 
"  the  fulness  of  the  time "  ?  What  says  the  Apostle  ? 
"  He  came  unto  His  own,"  to  His  own  whom  He  had 
been  specially  training  for  ages,  "  and  His  own  received 
Him  not."     His   Gospel,  as  we  know  to  our  sorrow,  has 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 65 

been  preached  for  more  than  eighteen  centuries  to  an 
ungrateful  world.  And  still,  either  through  the  coldness 
of  the  teachers  or  the  perversity  of  the  hearers,  to  the 
majority  it  is  preached  in  vain. 

Men  will  not  understand  that  God  cannot  force  truth 
and  life  on  the  unwilling  without  robbing  them  of  their 
moral  freedom;  without  depriving  them  of  that  very  nature 
which  He  sent  His  Son  to  renew.  Men  must  take  the 
Gospel  freely,  or  they  cannot  have  its  blessing.  They  must 
submit  to  Christ  willingly,  or  they  cannot  enter  into  His 
spirit  of  absolute  submission  to  the  Father.  It  was 
"  because  of  the  hardness  of  the  people's  hearts "  that 
Moses  had  to  permit  things  which  were  less  than  absolutely 
good,  and  that  our  Lord  had  to  tell  His  disciples  what 
I  fear  He  has  still  to  tell  us,  "I  have  many  things  to  say 
unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now."  When  we  think 
of  the  stubborn  moral  hindrances  which  the  Gospel  has 
to  overcome,  let  us  strive  to  be  humble  and  patient.  Is 
it  not  enough  for  us  to  know  that  in  the  purpose  and 
counsel  of  the  Omnipotent,  redemption  is  to  be  absolutely 
universal  in  its  scope.?  "God  was  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  Himself,"  yea,  not  this  world  only,  but 
whatever  other  intelligent  worlds  are  to  be  found  within  the 
bounds  of  His  infinite  sway.  "  It  was  the  good  pleasure 
of  the  Father,  through  Him,  to  reconcile  all  things  unto 
Himself;  through  Him  I  say,  whether  things  upon  the 
earth,  or  things  in  the  heavens."  God  created  all  things, 
"  to  the  intent  that  now  unto  the  principalities  and  powers 
in  the  heavenlies  might  be  made  known,  through  the 
Church,  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God,  according  to  the 
eternal  purpose  which  He  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord."  How  vast  is  the  scope,  how  illimitable  the  range, 
of  this  Christian  solidarity,  as  it  is  set  forth  in  these  twin 


1 66         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Epistles  to  Ephesus  and  Colossae  !  Do  we  owe  those 
ancient  heretics  nothing  then  who,  by  their  earnest  specu- 
lations upon  evil,  struck  out  for  us  such  glorious  and  far- 
reaching  revelations  as  these  ?  Was  it  not  well  for  us,  and 
for  all  generations  of  believers,  that,  by  their  stubborn  battle 
for  a  clearer  truth  and  a  stronger  light,  they  called  out, 
it  may  be  into  more  distinct  perception,  at  any  rate  into 
larger  and  fuller  expression,  the  great  thought  of  St.  Paul, 
that  not  only  Jews  and  Gentiles,  but  absolutely  all  things 
in  the  heaven  above  and  in  the  earth  beneath  should  be 
"  summed  up  in  Christ  "  ? 

Grant  me  only  this,  and  all  is  plain  to  me.  What  are  sin 
and  pain,  yea,  what  are  whole  lives  and  generations  full  of 
sin  and  pain,  if  God  Himself,  coming  forth  from  the  calm 
of  His  unchanging  bliss,  take  on  Himself  the  whole  burden 
of  His  creature's  woe,  break  with  His  own  arm  the  bonds  of 
His  creature's  curse,  and  pass  Himself  into  His  creature's 
soul  as  its  strength  and  life  ? 

I  know  that  we  cannot  escape  the  possibility  that  free 
creatures  by  their  obstinate  selfishness  may  conceivably 
defeat  all  the  efforts  of  Omnipotent  Love.  We  are  not, 
indeed,  driven  to  this  conclusion  by  any  words  of  Scripture, 
however  some  may  have  misunderstood  those  words,  but 
rather  by  the  nature  of  the  case.  Physical  science  with  its 
laws  of  heredity  and  continuity,  and  much  more  mental 
science  with  its  laws  of  association  and  of  the  persistence 
of  habits,  push  us  onward  to  the  dread  suggestion,  that  the 
will  of  man,  opposing  itself  to  a  Divine  goodness  seen  and 
hated,  might  harden  itself  into  immovable  moral  obduracy. 
When  I  survey  these  possibilities  as  they  stand  out  in  the 
necessities  of  thought  and  the  lurid  light  of  abandoned 
lives,  they  shake  my  soul  with  a  great  terror,  and  may  well 
make  the  impious  tremble. 


THE    COLOSSIAN    HERESY.  1 67 

What  is  your  hope  then,  I  may  be  asked,  in  the  face  of 
this  tremendous  possibihty  ?  Must  God  surrender  vast 
multitudes  to  the  hopeless  misery  of  eternal  selfishness? 
Shall  evil  in  their  case  triumph  after  all  ?  I  have  no  clear 
assurance,  I  acknowledge,  on  the  answer  to  this  terrible 
question  ;  but  I  have  at  least  a  hope,  deep  based  on  Scripture, 
that  the  Love  which  is  God  will  conquer  some  time,  at 
long  last,  the  evil  which  is  selfishness.  When  straining  my 
eyes,  with  eager,  tremulous  longing,  to  pierce  the  depths  of 
that  thunder-cloud  w^hich  hangs  threatening  over  the  end  of 
the  impenitent,  it  is  not  the  angry  flash  of  wrath,  it  is  the 
dawning  light  of  love,  which  I  see  illuminating  its  darkness. 
I  listen  in  the  awful  silence,  and  a  voice  seems  to  whisper, 
"  Child,  it  is  I.  Behind  the  cloud  which  affrights  thee 
there  lurks  neither  a  dark  necessity  nor  any  invincible 
element  of  resistance  intractable  to  My  will  and  purpose, 
Whatever  is  done,  I  am  the  Doer  of  it,  and  My  heart  is 
Love.  Doubtest  thou  ?  Then  look  into  the  face  of  My 
Beloved,  behold  the  manger-cradle  and  the  uplifted  cross. 
Can  anything  be  too  hard  for  the  Almighty  Love  which 
shines  from  these  ?  Can  any  mystery  be  too  dark  for  this 
light  to  illumine?  Can  any  task  be  too  tremendous  for 
this  power  to  achieve  ?  Looking  at  these,  canst  thou  not 
trust  Me  in  ways  too  devious  for  thy  feet,  too  dark  for  thy 
vision,  when  *  clouds  and  darkness  are  the  habitation  of 
My  throne'?"  Yes,  our  Father,  we  can  and  we  do  trust 
Thee,  not  only  in  our  own  doubts  and  sins  and  misgivings, 
but  also  in  the  darkest  bereavements  which  time  can  bring 
us.  We  trust  Thee  with  our  dear  ones,  who  were  evil,  and 
who  went  to  Thee  with  their  evil  unsubdued  in  their  hearts- 
We  mourned  and  wept  over  them,  we  pleaded  vainly  with 
them,  while  they  were  with  us,  and  now,  now  when  they 
are  out  of  reach,  we  would  fain  stretch  across  to  them  hands 


1 68         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

of  help,  would  fain  draw  them  penitent  and  purified  to  our 
bosom.  So  we  feel  to  them.  But  Thy  love  is  to  ours  as 
the  ocean  to  the  water-drop.  It  has  a  patience  which  we 
know  not,  a  power  which  we  know  not,  an  infinity  of  means 
and  resources,  a  depth  and  efficiency  of  tenderness,  which 
neither  eternity  can  exhaust  nor  resistance  diminish.  Thou 
canst  not  cease  to  love,  for  then  Thou  wouldst  cease  to  be. 
Thou  canst  not  cease  to  woo,  to  chastise  and  teach,  for 
then  Thou  wouldst  cease  to  love ;  and  knowing  this,  we 
believe  that,  even  in  the  case  of  the  hardest  and  the 
worst.  Thou  wilt  make  good  in  Thine  own  time,  and  in 
ways  past  our  finding  out,  that  largest,  grandest  promise  of 
Thy  Word  :  "  When  all  things  shall  have  been  subjected  to 
Him,  then  shall  the  Son  Himself  be  subjected  to  Him  that 
did  put  all  things  under  Him,  that  God  may  be  all  things 
in  all  creatures." 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY. 


I. 


The  practice  of  sacrifice  has  occupied  a  central  and  decisive 
position  in  almost  every  known  form  of  religion.  Whatever 
else  has  varied  this  has  always  found  a  place,  in  all  times 
and  among  all  races,  whether  Aryan,  Semitic,  or  Turanian. 
Under  all  diversities  of  form  the  fact  is  constant ;  and  it 
becomes,  therefore,  a  question  of  the  first  importance,  What 
is  the  meaning  of  this  fact  ?  To  what  deep  common  need 
does  it  point  ?  Of  what  universal  belief  is  it  the  witness  ? 
As  Christian  men  we  naturally  look  to  revelation  for  the 
final  answer  to  that  question. 

Among  Semitic  peoples,  and  especially  among  that 
Semitic  people  which  was  the  chosen  organ  of  revelation, 
the  keen  sense  of  sin,  and  of  the  estrangement  which  it 
causes  between  man  and  God,  has  given  to  sacrifice  special 
prominence  and  meaning.  Above  all,  then,  in  the  vast  and 
complicated  system  of  sacrifice  (with  its  chosen  ministers 
and  its  diversity  of  offerings  and  ceremonial),  which  forms, 
one  may  say,  the  heart  of  Jewish  worship  and  belief,  we 
naturally  seek  the  clearest  expression  of  true  ideas  upon 
this  subject.  At  once,  however,  we  are  met  by  a  great 
difficulty.  The  Jewish  system  is  not  one  of  final  obligation 
and  authority.  It  was  not  itself  the  substance,  but  only 
the  shadow,  of  eternal  truth.  Its  precepts  were  not  for  all 
time,  but  only  for  a  period  and  economy  which  have  already 
passed  away.  If,  then,  its  sacrificial  system  is  to  be  a  trust- 
worthy guide  to  us,  in  our  inquiry,  we  must  discover,  if 


172         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

possible,  a  Christian  explanation  of  its  main  features  and 
ordinances.  Can  we  find  such  an  explanation  ?  If  I 
answer  that  we  can  only  discover  it  in  a  single  book  of  the 
New  Testament,  I  shall  be  thought,  perhaps,  to  speak 
rashly.     And  yet  I  believe  this  to  be  the  fact. 

The  question  of  the  place  and  meaning  of  the  sacrificial 
system  of  the  Old  Testament  is  never  once  directly  considered 
by  St.  Paul.  The  difficulty  which  he  had  to  encounter  was 
of  a  larojer  kind.  It  was  connected  with  the  ordinance  of 
circumcision,  the  initial  rite  of  the  Old  Covenant ;  and  it, 
therefore,  shaped  itself  thus  :  Is  the  Law  of  Moses  as  a  whole 
obligatory  on  the  Christian  ?  Can  it  deliver  him  from  sin  ? 
Can  it  even  help  towards  his  deliverance  ?  Is  it,  in  such 
wise,  a  necessary  element  in  God's  eternal  purpose  of  re- 
demption that  every  believer  in  Christ  must  first  become  a 
son  of  the  law  before  he  can  become  a  Christian  ?  You 
know  that  the  Apostle's  answer  to  this  question  was  a 
sweeping  and  uncompromismg  negative.  The  law  could 
only  make  a  demand  for  righteousness,  but  could  in  no 
wise  enable  anyone  to  answer  that  demand.  A  man  could 
be  justified  before  God,  not  by  works  of  a  law,  but  only  by 
faith  in  Christ.  The  righteousness  of  the  law  could  be  ful- 
filled, not  by  knowledge  of  what  the  requirements  of  that 
righteousness  were,  but  only  by  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  law  might,  indeed,  produce  a  conviction  of  sin, 
but  it  could  neither  give  the  sense  of  forgiveness,  nor  the 
power  to  become  holy.  The  law,  then,  argued  the  Apostle, 
could  be  of  no  final  nor  perpetual  validity.  To  the  Christian 
especially  the  law  was  dead,  and  he  to  it ;  as  much  dead  to 
it  as  a  widow  to  the  authority  of  a  deceased  husband.  So, 
then,  he  concludes,  "  We  are  delivered  from  the  law,  that 
being  dead  wherein  we  were  held,  that  we  should  serve  in 
newness  of  spirit  and  not  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter." 


THE    HEBREW   APOSTASY.  173 

If  we  were  to  accept  this  conclusion,  without  condition 
or  explanation,  it  would  seem  to  reduce  our  question  about 
the  Jewish  law  of  sacrifice  to  insignificance.  What  have 
we  to  do  with  Jewish  sacrifices,  it  might  be  urged,  when 
the  whole  law,  of  which  they  were  part,  is  dead  and  gone? 
What  remains  but  that  we  bury  it,  as  quickly  as  possible,  in 
oblivion  ? 

But  that  St.  Paul  never  meant  us  to  do  any  such 
thing  is  manifest,  as  from  other  parts  of  his  writings,  so 
especially  from  his  well-known  statement  to  the  Romans, 
that  "the  things  which  were  written  aforetime  were  written 
for  our  learning,  that  we  through  patience  and  comfort  of 
the  Scriptures  might  have  hope."  "The  law  was  our 
schoolmaster  to  bring  us  to  Christ,"  and  the  office  of  the 
schoolmaster  is  by  no  means  ended.  He  may  not,  indeed, 
have  either  authority  to  command  or  power  to  deliver,  but 
he  certainly  still  has  a  commission  to  teach,  to  exhort, 
and  to  comfort.  It  remains  true,  however,  that  in  no  part 
of  his  writings  has  the  Apostle  Paul  formally  drawn  out  for 
us  the  lessons  contained  in  the  Jewish  system  of  sacrifice. 
For  though  at  times  he  uses  sacrificial  metaphors  and 
references,  he  was  not  required  by  the  needs  of  those  whom 
he  addressed  to  draw  out  explicitly  the  precise  meaning  of 
such  metaphors  and  references. 

Nor  again  can  we  find  any  formal  exposition  of  the  great 
lessons  of  the  Jewish  sacrificial  system  in  what  is  reported 
to  us  by  the  Evangelists  of  the  teaching  of  our  Lord. 
Implicitly,  it  is  true,  He  is  more  than  once  brought  into 
comparison  with  the  sacrificial  victims.  He  is  called  by 
John  the  Baptist,  as  by  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse,  "  The 
Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,"  and 
more  than  once,  as  in  chap.  xxii.  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel,  our 
Lord  identifies  Himself  with  the  suffering  servant  of  the 


174         DANGERS    OF    THE    ArOSTOLIC    AGE. 

prophet  Isaiah.  But  these  are  all  perfectly  general  ex- 
pressions, and  contain  nothing  explicit  on  the  precise  con- 
nection between  the  Jewish  sacrifices  and  their  Eternal 
Ideal.  Our  Lord's  general  attitude,  indeed,  towards  the 
sacrificial  worship  of  the  Mosaic  law  is  very  much  that 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets.  He  generally  ignores  it,  to  fix 
attention  upon  that  ethical  reality  of  self-sacrifice  to  which 
it  points.  In  one  passage,  however.  He  does  seem  to  indi- 
cate, not  obscurely,  its  true  connection  with  the  kingdom 
of  God.  He  says  of  the  law  in  general,  and  therefore  of 
course  of  this  part  of  it,  that  not  one  jot  or  tittle  shall 
pass  away  till  all  be  fulfilled.  It  follows,  then,  that  if  the 
sacrificial  worship  of  the  law  have  indeed  passed  away,  this 
can  only  be  because  of  its  fulfilment. 

But  if  so,  then  the  question  becomes  even  more  urgent, 
how  has  it  been  fulfilled?  And  to  that  question  a  clear 
and  precise  answer  is  given  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
alone.  There,  then,  I  propose  to  seek  it,  that  upon  the  great 
subject  of  the  Christian  sacrifice,  the  discussion  of  which  has 
so  powerfully  agitated,  and  is  still  agitating,  the  Church,  we 
may  obtain  the  guidance  and  direction  of  the  Word  of  God. 

But  here  again  we  are  met  by  a  formidable  difficulty. 
Are  we  sure,  it  is  asked,  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
has  a  legitimate  claim  to  be  called  the  Word  of  God  ?  Do 
we  know  who  wrote  it  ?  and  if  so,  can  we  say  that  its  author 
was  an  inspired  man  ?  I  am  afraid  that  around  this  question 
there  still  hangs  some  of  the  doubt  expressed  by  the  great 
Origen  when  he  said  that,  in  spite  of  the  uncertain  echoes 
of  the  tradition  of  the  end  of  the  second  century,  "God 
only  knew  who  was  the  author." 

It  seems  to  me  absolutely  certain  that  St.  Paul  was  not 
its  author.  The  most  reliable  tradition  leads  us  to  this 
conclusion.     The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  employed  so 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  175 

largely  by  no  primitive  author  as  by  Clement  of  Rome. 
And  it  is  precisely  at  Rome,  in  Italy,  and  in  the  Western 
Church,  that  the  Pauline  authorship  is  denied.  No  such 
result  would  seem  to  be  possible,  if  Clement,  Bishop  of 
Rome  in  the  first  century,  had  known  St.  Paul  to  be  the 
author  of  our  Epistle.  The  style  of  the  Epistle,  again,  even 
more  than  the  tradition  of  the  Western  Church,  excludes 
the  possibility  that  St.  Paul  was  its  author.  From  the  days 
of  Origen  to  the  very  last  year,  in  which  Bishop  Westcott 
published  his  Commentary,  the  greatest  scholars  have  held 
this  evidence  to  be  decisive.  Its  general  tenour  has  been 
well  and  briefly  stated  by  Archdeacon  Farrar,  as  follows  : 
"  The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  cites  differently 
from  St.  Paul,  he  writes  differently,  he  argues  differently,  he 
quotes  from  a  different  edition  of  the  Pentateuch,  he  con- 
structs and  connects  his  sentences  differently,  he  builds  up 
his  paragraphs  on  a  wholly  different  model.  His  Greek  is 
different,  his  style  different,  many  of  his  phrases  different, 
his  line  of  reasoning  wholly  different.  ...  St.  Paul  is  rugged 
and  impetuous,  while  this  writer  is  elaborately  and  fault- 
lessly rhetorical.  He  never  abandons  his  calm  and  sonorous 
euphony,  and  he  delights  in  amplitude  and  rotundity  of 
expression." 

But  if  in  deference  to  such  considerations  we  surrender 
the  Pauline  authorship,  to  whom  shall  we  attribute  its 
composition?  Its  probable  date,  before  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  and  an  expression  in  the  letter  itself,  narrow 
considerably  the  area  of  our  inquiry.  In  the  third  verse 
of  the  second  chapter  we  read  of  the  great  salvation  as 
follows  :  "  Which  having  been  spoken  at  the  first,  through 
the  Lord,  was  confirmed  unto  us  by  them  that  heard  it." 
The  author  then,  though  not  an  Apostle,  was  a  hearer  and 
contemporary  of  the  Apostles.     Again,  there    can  be    no 


176         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

doubt  that  he  was  of  the  school  of  St.  Paul.  "  The  thoughts 
of  the  Epistle,"  as  Origen  said,  "are  St.  Paul's."  If  St. 
Paul  had  been  obliged  to  deal  with  the  subject  of  this 
Epistle,  we  can  be  sure  that  he  would  have  said  upon  it 
substantially  what  our  author  says. 

Again,  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  the  writer  of  this 
Epistle  was  well  acquainted  with  many  of  the  works  of  Philo 
of  Alexandria.  His  method  is  that  of  Philo.  "  The  book  is 
based,"  as  Reuss  remarks,  "  on  the  allegorico-typical  inter- 
pretation of  the  Old  Testament."  All  the  sacrificial  figures 
and  ordinances  of  the  Levitical  ritual  are  treated  as  temporal 
expressions  of  an  Eternal  Ideal.  The  tabernacle  is  made 
after  a  typical  pattern  shown  to  Moses  on  the  Mount.  The 
priests  and  sacrifices  are  but  typical  shadows  of  a  spiritual 
Archetype.  In  the  very  facts  of  the  Old  Testament  history, 
and  not  in  its  facts  alone,  but  also  in  its  reticences,  as  in 
the  case  of  Melchizedek,  the  author  sees  suggestions  of 
reaUties  in  the  super-sensual  world.  His  language  again 
betrays  an  acquaintance,  even  a  familiarity,  with  the 
characteristic  phrases  of  Philo  and  his  school.  In  many 
passages  of  the  Epistle  where  Greek  words  occur,  which  are 
used  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament,  they  are  found  to 
be  words  which  are  used  by  Philo. 

Once  more,  the  Epistle  was  written  to  some  particular 
Church,  with  the  special  circumstances  and  individuals  of 
which  the  author  is  well  acquainted,  to  whom  he  can  speak 
with  authority,  from  whom  he  has  been  separated  for  a 
season,  and  for  whose  prayers  he  asks  "that  he  may  be 
restored  to  them  the  sooner."  He  is,  further,  a  Hellenistic 
Jew,  and  a  friend  of  Timothy,  with  whom  he  hopes  shortly 
to  visit  the  Church  which  he  addresses.  With  all  these 
facts  before  us,  it  ought  not  to  be  impossible  to  suggest  at 
least,  if  not  to  specify,  the  probable  author. 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  I  77 

Since  he  was  a  companion  of  St.  Paul,  of  well-known 
name  and  recognised  authority,  he  must  be  included    in 
the  following  list :  Barnabas,  Luke,  Clement,  Mark,  Titus, 
Silvanus,  Aquila,  and  Apollos.     Of  these  Titus  was  not  a 
Jew  by  birth,  Mark  was  not  a  Hellenistic  Jew,  and  of  Silas, 
beyond  the  fact  that  he  was  St.  Paul's  companion,  we  know 
absolutely  nothing.     Clement,  by  his  large  quotation  of  the 
Epistle,  proclaims  that  some  other  was  the  author.     A  man 
does  not  usually  quote  himself;    and  besides,   his  whole 
style  and  mode  of  thought,   as  we  know  them  from  his 
extant  Epistle,  are  rather    practical   than  speculative.     If, 
again,  he  had  been  the  author,  the  Church  of  Rome  must 
have  known  and  proclaimed  the  fact.     The  character  of 
Barnabas  is  little  suited  to  the  style  and  contents  of  our 
Epistle.     He  was  more  an  actor  than  an  orator,  more  a 
saint  than  a  philosopher ;  and,  as  a  Levite,  he  would  not 
have  been  likely  to  refer,  as  does  the  author  of  our  Epistle, 
to  the  ritual  of  the  Book  of  Exodus  where  it  differs  from 
that  of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  with  which  Barnabas  was 
necessarily  familiar.     Aquila,   again,   though  a  good  man, 
was  so  little  original  and  independent  that  even  in    the 
ministry  of  teaching  he  is  only  named  along  with  his  wife 
Priscilla.     There  remain,  then,  of  our  list  only  St.  Luke 
and  Apollos,  and  to  one  of  these,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the 
authorship  of  our  Epistle  may,  with  a  very  high  degree  of 
probability,  be  assigned. 

There  are  many  coincidences  of  language  and  idiom 
between  our  Epistle  and  the  known  writings  of  St.  Luke ; 
and  it  was  the  tradition  at  Alexandria  that  he  had  translated 
the  Epistle  into  Greek.  A  careful  comparison,  however, 
speedily  breaks  down  this  appearance  of  agreement.  St. 
Luke's  Greek  style  is  correct,  and  occasionally  elegant,  but 
it   wholly  lacks    the   fervour   and  rhetorical  power  of  our 


178         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Epistle.  The  contrast  between  the  two  is  that  between 
the  style  of  Lord  Selborne  and  that  of  the  late  lamented 
Canon  Liddon,  and  certainly  any  one  well  acquainted  with 
the  writings  of  these  two  authors  would  not  be  likely  to 
attribute  the  works  of  either  to  the  pen  of  the  other. 
Again,  it  would  appear  from  the  fourteenth  verse  of  the 
fourth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  taken  with 
the  context,  that  St.  Luke  was  by  birth  a  Gentile,  while  it 
is  almost  certain  that  the  author  of  the  Epistle  was  a 
Jew. 

There  remains,  then,  of  all  our  list  of  possible  authors 
only  Apollos.  Luther  first  suggested  his  name,  and  this 
suggestion  has  received  the  powerful  support  in  modern 
times  of  Bleek,  Tholuck,  Reuss,  Alford,  and  Farrar.  To 
me,  I  confess,  it  seems  wonderful  that  this  supposition  has 
not  received  more  general  acceptance.  Bear  in  mind  the 
several  conditions  of  authorship  which  I  have  already  enu- 
merated, and  then  call  to  remembrance  what  we  know  of 
Apollos  from  the  New  Testament.  He  was  "  a  Jew,  an 
Alexandrian  by  race,  a  learned  or  eloquent  man,  and  mighty 
in  the  Scriptures."  And  when  he  had  been  perfectly  in- 
structed in  the  way  of  God,  we  are  told  that  "  he  powerfully 
confuted  the  Jews  (at  Ephesus),  and  that  publicly,  showing 
by  the  Scriptures  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ."  Again,  with 
respect  to  his  position  and  influence  in  the  Church,  we 
have  the  references  in  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 
So  great  was  his  reputation  *at  Corinth,  that  a  party  was 
formed  in  his  name,  which  held  its  place  beside  those  who 
had  chosen  as  their  leaders  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter,  the 
very  first  of  the  Apostles.  So  great,  again,  was  the  confidence 
which  St.  Paul  reposed  in  him,  and  so  entire  the  harmony 
between  these  two  in  teaching,  that  the  Apostle  can  say 
that  "  he  had  planted,  and  Apollos  had  watered,"  and  that 


THE    HEBREW    ArOSTASY.  I  79 

both  were  "  God's  fellow-workers "  in  the  husbandry  of 
grace.  Every  one  of  the  necessary  conditions  of  authorship 
seems  to  me  to  be  satisfied  in  these  Scriptural  notices  of 
Apollos ;  and  thus  I  feel  disposed  to  say,  not  only,  with 
Archdeacon  Farrar,  "The  Epistle  was  either  written  by 
Apollos,  or  else  the  name  of  the  author  is  unknown  to  us ; " 
but  also,  with  Dr.  Kendrick,  in  Lange's  Commentary,  "The 
only  name  on  which  we  can,  as  it  seems  to  me,  fasten,  and 
make  a  vigorous  and  solid  argument,  is  that  of  Apollos." 

But  if  Apollos  be  the  author  of  this  Epistle,  then  I 
conceive  that  all  difficulty  in  receiving  it  as  the  Word  of 
God  is  at  an  end.  He  who  was  the  trusted  companion 
and  co-worker  of  St.  Paul,  the  leader  who  stands  in  the 
Corinthian  Church  beside  the  very  chiefest  Apostles,  the 
powerful  orator  and  mighty  Scriptural  scholar,  who,  at 
Ephesus,  was  the  great  champion  of  the  truth  against 
Jewish  gainsayers,  is  a  teacher  manifestly  chosen  and  sent 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  one  who  can  speak  in  the  name 
of  Christ  with  power  and  authority.  If  even  the  Church  of 
Christ  throughout  the  world  had  not  received  this  Epistle 
as  God's  Word,  the  acknowledgment  of  the  authorship  of 
Apollos  would  alone  have  been  sufficient  to  secure  for  it 
the  weight  of  an  inspired  authority. 

But  now,  in  the  next  place,  it  will  greatly  help  us  to 
understand  the  scope  and  intent  of  this  inspired  argument, 
if  we  can  determine  approximately  what  needs  it  was  in- 
tended to  meet,  and  to  what  persons  it  was  originally 
addressed.  If  the  conclusion  to  which  I  have  come  as  to  the 
authorship  of  the  Epistle  be  received  as  one  of  high  proba- 
bility, this  will  greatly  help  us  in  our  present  inquiry. 

It  is  admitted,  with  an  all  but  universal  consent,  that 
our  Epistle  was  addressed  to  a  Church  consisting  wholly 
or  chiefly  of  Christians  of  Hebrew  birth.     The  Epistle  is  in 


l8o         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

the  main  a  Christian  interpretation  of  the  sacrificial  system 
of  the  Old  Testament.  It  assumes  throughout,  as  Hebrew 
Christians  would  assume,  that  the  ancient  ordinance  of 
sacrifice  could  still  render  a  didactic  service  to  the  Christian 
Church.  Sacrifices  are  never  spoken  of,  with  Pauline  harsh- 
ness, as  "weak  and  beggarly  elements,"  but,  with  all  tenderness 
to  inevitable  Jewish  prejudices,  as  the  appointed  figures  and 
shadows  of  the  true.  They  may  no  longer  perhaps  be  of  prac- 
tical obligation,  but  at  least  they  retain  a  high  value  as  signs 
and  explications  of  the  things  which  they  represent. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  taught  very  firmly  that  they  form 
no  longer  any  necessary  part  of  Christian  worship.  No 
man  will  be  the  worse  for  being  without  them.  Any  man 
who  shall  abandon  Christ  in  order  to  retain  them  will  be 
nothing  less  than  an  apostate.  The  strain  alike  of  teaching 
and  warning  in  this  Episde  proves  thus  conclusively  that  it 
was  written  to  a  Church  consisting  wholly,  or  nearly  so,  of 
Christians  who  were  Hebrew  by  birth. 

But  where  could  such  a  Church  be  found  in  the  Apostolic 
age  ?  Nowhere,  I  believe,  but  in  Jerusalem  or  Alexandria ; 
not  certainly  in  such  Gentile  cities  as  Corinth  or  Rome. 

Can  the  Epistle,  then,  have  been  addressed  to  the  Chris- 
tians of  Jerusalem?  There  are  many  reasons  for  with- 
holding assent  to  such  a  suggestion.  The  quotations  from 
the  Septuagint  prove  that  the  Epistle  was  written  in  Greek, 
which  could  hardly  have  been  possible  had  it  been  intended 
for  Jerusalem.  Again,  the  persons  to  whom  it  was  ad- 
dressed are  praised  for  their  assiduity  "in  ministering  to 
the  saints,"  and  it  is  well  known  that  in  the  Apostolic  age 
this  meant  "  ministering  to  the  poor  saints  in  Jerusalem." 
Jerusalem  received  alms,  it  did  not  give  them.  Once  more, 
it  is  apparent,  from  the  third  verse  of  the  second  chapter, 
that  the  Church  to  which  the  Episde  was  addressed  included 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  l8l 

none  who  had  been  direct  disciples  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  a 
state  of  things  ahiiost  impossible  at  Jerusalem  in  the  period 
before  its  destruction,  while  Timothy  was  yet  living. 

But  if  we  exclude  Jerusalem,  then  the  only  place  left 
where  we  might  look  for  a  purely  Hebrew  Christian  Church 
is  Alexandria.  Now  Alexandria,  with  its  magnificent  library 
and  museum,  with  its  noble  Exchange,  its  extensive  quays, 
its  vast  commerce  inherited  from  Tyre  and  Carthage,  and  its 
motley  concourse  of  all  the  races  of  the  world,  was  acknow- 
ledged by  the  Romans  to  be  the  second  city  in  the  empire. 
It  had  at  least  six  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  of  whom 
a  large  proportion  were  Jews,  forming  one  of  the  three 
original  constituents  of  the  population.  Nor  were  these 
mingled  promiscuously  with  the  Greek  and  Egyptian  ele- 
ments. On  the  contrary,  they  inhabited  a  separate  quarter 
known  as  the  Regio  Judaeorum,  and  shut  off,  by  walls 
and  gates  of  its  own,  from  the  rest  of  the  city.  Jewish 
Alexandria  was,  in  fact,  a  kind  of  second  Jerusalem,  whose 
people  were  governed  by  their  own  Ethnarch  and  their 
own  national  laws,  and  who  frequently  entered  into  fierce 
conflicts  with  their  Greek  neighbours.  Here,  then,  was  an 
exclusive  Jewish  community,  in  the  midst  of  which  an 
exclusively  Hebrew  Christian  Church  might  easily  have 
been  founded. 

Once  again,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  if  Apollos  wrote 
our  Epistle  it  is  highly  probable  that  he  would  stand  to 
such  a  community  in  the  very  relations  implied  therein. 
He  was  himself  an  Alexandrian  of  great  eloquence  and 
popularity,  and  of  that  power  and  authority  in  the  Primitive 
Church  which  would  enable  him  to  assume  unchallenged, 
as  he  does  in  this  Epistle,  the  position  and  tone  of  an 
authoritative  teacher.  Again  the  author,  as  we  have  seen, 
writes  to  those  with  whom  he  is  at  home,  in  whose  history 


1 82         DANGERS    OF    THE    APQSTOLIC    AGE.    • 

and  trials  he  has  previously  mingled,  whom  he  has  left  fo 
a  season,  and  to  whom,  in  company  with  Timothy,  he  hopes 
soon  to  return.  If,  then,  we  assume,  as  is  but  natural,  that, 
after  assisting  St.  Paul  in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece,  Apollos 
returned  to  a  somewhat  settled  ministry  among  his  own 
people,  these  local  references  are  just  such  as  we  should 
expect  to  find.  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  it  is  highly 
probable  that  Apollos  wrote  this  Epistle  to  the  Hebrew 
Christians  of  Alexandria,  during  a  temporary  absence, 
possibly  on  a  missionary  journey,  in  Italy.* 

If  these  conclusions  appear  probable,  then  it  will  not  be 
impossible  to  determine  from  the  Epistle  itself  what  were 
the  needs  and  dangers  which  it  was  written  to  meet  and 
to  supply.  In  its  early  days  we  are  told  that  the  Hebrew 
Church  of  Alexandria  had  been  conspicuous  for  good  works. 
It  had  endured  a  great  fight  of  afflictions,  though  not  yet 
called  upon  to  resist  unto  blood.  Nor  was  its  love  in  those 
gracious  times  less  than  its  fortitude.  For,  looking  to  the 
better  inheritance,  its  members  not  only  took  joyfully  the 
spoiling  of  their  goods,  but  also  had  compassion  on  them 
that  were  in  bonds.  As  time  went  on,  however,  and  their 
eager  hopes  of  Messiah's  speedy  return  were  disappointed, 

*  The  only  possible  objection  to  this  conclusion  arises  out  of  the  fact 
that,  at  the  end  of  the  first  century,  this  Epistle  was  known  at  Rome  and 
largely  quoted  by  Clement,  while  the  first  references  to  it  in  Alexandria 
are  much  later,  and  in  a  tone  of  great  uncertainty.  Is  it  not  probable, 
then,  it  has  been  asked,  that  an  Epistle  so  early  and  familiarly  known  at 
Rome  was  first  addressed  to  Rome  ?  I  think  that  the  facts  point  in  an 
utterly  opposite  direction.  For  if  the  Epistle  had  been  addressed  to 
Rome  the  Roman  Church  would  certainly  have  known  its  author,  and 
would  not  have  had  time  to  forget  his  name  before  the  close  of  the 
first  century ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  were  first  addressed  to 
Alexandria,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  the  author's  name  might  have 
been  forgotten  before  the  birth  of  the  Christian  literature  of  Alexandria^ 
at  the  close  of  the  second  century 


THE    HEBREW   APOSTASY.  1 83 

they  lost  the  fervour  of  their  first  love.  The  public  assem- 
blies of  the  Church  were  deserted.  Many  sank  into  a  state 
of  mental  and  spiritual  torpor,  becoming  dull  of  hearing, 
losing  not  only  interest  in  what  they  had  once  prized,  but 
also  capacity  to  grasp  and  understand  the  more  advanced 
teaching  which  the  times  required.  Further,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  this  dulness  of  feeling  and  understanding 
was  accompanied  by  grave  signs  of  moral  declension.  Their 
early  boldness,  enthusiasm,  and  patient  endurance  had 
given  place  to  a  weary  sluggishness  and  hopelessness ;  so 
that  they  needed  to  be  bidden  to  "  lift  up  the  hands  that  hang 
down,  and  the  feeble  knees."  Like  the  Church  of  Laodicaea, 
they  had  sunk  into  a  miserable  lukewarmness  of  feeling 
and  childishness  of  intellect,  and  were  dragging  on  a  feeble 
existence,  without  either  profit  or  happiness. 

And  while  they  stood  in  this  terribly  perilous  spiritual 
condition  they  were  about  to  be  smitten  by  the  thunder- 
stroke of  a  great  trial  and  temptation.  Already,  as  Apollos 
tells  them,  "  they  saw  the  day  drawing  nigh."  The  trumpet 
of  fanatical  patriotism  had  already  sounded  its  fateful 
summons  from  the  height  of  Mount  Sion.  It  had  been 
answered  by  the  eager  swordsmen  of  Galilee,  and  had 
already  shaken  the  hearts  of  the  turbulent  crowds  of 
Alexandria.  Judea  was  preparing  for  a  death-struggle  with 
Rome,  and  every  Jew,  of  whatever  sect  or  faith,  was  being 
summoned  to  take  his  side.  In  the  dark  narrow  lanes  of 
the  Regio  Jud^orum  it  was  as  though  men  heard  again  the 
dread  cry  of  Carmel,  "  If  the  Lord  be  God,  follow  Him  :  but 
if  Baal,  then  follow  him."  In  the  year  66  a.d.  this  challenge 
must  have  come  to  every  Christian  Jew  as  a  personal 
summons.  Was  he  to  suffer  the  Roman  to  trample  on  the 
holy  city  because  he  was  a  Christian  ?  Was  he  to  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  the  death-cry  of  his  nation,  struggling  in  the 


184         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC   AGE. 

desperate  grasp  of  the  heathen  oppressor,  because  he 
beheved  that  a  Jew  was  his  Lord  and  his  God  ?  Nay, 
should  he  not  rather  throw  himself  unreservedly  into  the 
ranks  of  the  sacred  people,  should  he  not  sink  in  this  dark 
crisis  of  their  fate  all  which  separated  him  from  the  children 
of  Abraham  ?  Was  not  blood  more  than  opinion  ?  Were 
not  two  thousand  years  of  a  glorious  history  more  than  the 
loose  spiritual  ties  of  yesterday — ties  of  opinion,  preference, 
and  belief,  which  had  already  been  slackened  by  the  wear 
and  tear  of  ordinary  life  ?  Such  feelings  shook  and  swayed 
the  Jewish  Christian  at  the  very  centre  of  his  deepest  affec- 
tions, and  would  have  been  of  almost  irresistible  strength 
if  even  his  Christian  faith  had  kept  its  first  freshness.  But 
what  was  likely  to  be  their  effect  in  his  present  circumstances, 
when  already  his  love  was  chilled,  his  hopes  were  dimmed, 
and  the  practical  paralysis  of  fear  and  doubt  had  led  him 
to  abandon  Christian  worship,  and  to  look  upon  the  dim 
figure  of  the  Christ  as  a  fading  and  vanishing  dream? 
Here  were  present  all  the  predisposing  causes  of  estrange- 
ment and  apostasy,  and  unless  something  were  done,  and 
that  speedily,  to  revive  the  energy  of  a  drooping  faith,  it 
was  all  too  likely  that  the  light  of  the  Alexandrian  Church 
might  be  quenched,  and  its  candlestick  removed  from  its 
place. 

It  was  at  this  critical  moment,  when  everything  betokened 
defeat  and  disaster,  that  the  little  company  of  Alexandrian 
Christians  were  summoned  to  their  obscure  meeting-place 
to  hear  a  letter  which  had  been  sent  to  them  by  their 
famous  leader  and  teacher.  Many  came,  I  doubt  not, 
slackly  and  reluctantly.  But  if  their  faith  in  Jesus  Christ- 
had  not  utterly  ebbed  away,  they  must  have  listened,  one 
thinks,  in  the  hush  of  the  upper  chamber,  with  starded 
interest  and  kindling  hearts  to  this  noble  apology  for  their 


THE    HEBREW   APOSTASY.  185 

faith.  Solemnly  it  warned  them  of  their  deadly  danger, 
that  they  stood  on  the  very  brink  of  a  hopeless  apostasy,  of 
an  abandonment  of  the  only  hope  of  salvation,  which  in  the 
case  of  such  as  they  must  needs  be  final  and  irremediable. 
For  how  could  it  be  possible  to  renew  again  to  repentance 
those  who,  "  having  tasted  of  the  heavenly  gift,  and  been 
made  partakers  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  having  tasted  the 
good  Word  of  God  and  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come," 
had  "  trodden  underfoot  the  Son  of  God,  and  had  counted 
the  blood  of  the  covenant  wherewith  they  were  sanctified  an 
unholy  thing,  and  had  done  despite  to  the  Spirit  of  grace  "  ? 
For  them  to  fall  back  into  Judaism,  to  abandon  the 
substance  for  the  shadow,  the  spirit  for  the  flesh,  redeeming 
grace  for  empty  rites  which,  having  been  fulfilled  and 
superseded,  hadjost  all  their  efficacy;  was  to. fall  back  into 
a  formalism  which  they  had  found  to  be  useless,  and  in 
which,  therefore,  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  believe. 
They  could  not  even  be  good  Jews.  For  them  the  alter- 
native was  Christianity  or  unbelief— either  Christ,  the  one 
heavenly  High  Priest,  and  only  sufficient  sacrifice,  or  a 
world  without  God,  and  a  life  without  heavenly  communion. 
Such  was  the  appeal  of  this  Epistle  to  those  whom  it 
originally  addressed.  And  to  us,  too,  standing  as  we  do  at 
a  like  point  of  decision,  driven,  whether  we  will  or  not,  to 
make  the  like  final  choice  between  faith  in  Christ  and  a 
blank  disbelief  in  everything  Eternal  and  Divine,  it  has  a 
word  of  warning  not  less  solemn,  a  word  of  instruction  not 
less  momentous  and  significant.  To  us  the  question  is 
addressed,  not  less  urgently  than  it  was  to  them  :  Is  there 
any  true  sacrifice  for  sin  ?  Has  God  provided  any  way  of 
approach  to  His  spotless  holiness  which  may  be  traversed 
by  those  who  are  held  back  by  the  sense  of  their  own 
unworthiness,  and  who  are  too  often  tempted  to  cry  like 


1 86         DANGERS    OF    THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

St.  Peter  in  the  unveiled  brightness  of  the  Divine  power 
and  purity,  "  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man, 
O  Lord."  If  there  be  such  a  sacrifice,  in  what  does  it 
consist  ?  If  there  be  such  a  way  of  reconciliation,  how  can 
it  be  traversed  ?  Such  were  the  questions  which  perplexed 
the  little  company  of  tempted  people  who  first  listened  to 
this  letter  in  the  Alexandrian  Jewry.  Such  are  the  questions 
which  press  imperiously  for  consideration  to-day,  when  at 
the  intenser  moments  of  life  the  souls  of  men  are  startled 
into  the  condemnation  of  self-knowledge ;  and  such  are  the 
questions  to  which  I  propose  to  seek  an  answer  in  my  two 
remaining  lectures. 


11. 

Si'.  Paul,  in  his  great  controversy  with  those  Jewish 
Christians  who  strove  to  make  the  ordinances  of  the 
Jewish  Church  a  condition  of  Christian  discipleship,  en- 
deavoured to  show,  not  only  that  the  covenant  of  grace 
had  superseded  the  law,  but  also  that  it  had  preceded  it. 
Considered  historically,  grace  overlapped  law,  faith  over- 
lapped works,  at  both  ends  of  the  historical  scale.  And' 
this  was  a  plain  proof  to  the  Aposde,  that  not  the  method 
of  law  and  obedience,  but  that  of  grace  and  trust,  was  in 
accordance  with  the  eternal  purpose  of  God.  The  law  was 
a  concession  to  human  imperfection.  It  was  a  stepping 
down  from  the  high  pathway  of  grace  to  the  low  platform 
of  dwarfed  human  capacity,  in  order  that  in  due  time  men 
might  be  raised  again,  through  the  discipline  of  obedience, 
to  the  height  from  which  they  had  fallen.  The  figure  in 
Nature  of  this  historical  process  is  that  of  a  road  traversing 
a  high  mountain  plateau,  which  has  to  descend  into  a 
valley  in  order  to  regain  its  original  level  on  the  opposite 
mountain  range.  The  Apostle  finds  the  proof  of  this 
position  in  the  records  of  God's  dealings  with  Abraham. 
Abraham  was  justified  before  God,  not  by  obedience  to 
a  multitude  of  ceremonial  precepts,  but  by  faith  in  the 
presence  and  power  of  Him  that  called  him.  And  thus 
the  historical  origin  of  the  Gospel,  and  its  true  level  and 
direction,  are  not  to  be  sought  in  the  valley-path  of  the 
law,  true  historical    continuation  as  this  might  be  of  the 


1 88         DANGERS    OF    THE   ArOSTOLIC    AGE. 

earlier  road ;  but  rather  on  the  free  and  breezy  heights  of 
patriarchal  life. 

And  as  St.  Paul  goes  back  to  Abraham  in  order  to 
vindicate  the  larger  scope  and  greater  freedom  of  the 
Gospel,  so  in  dealing  with  the  institution  of  sacrifice,  and 
with  a  like  purpose,  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  goes  back  to  the  ethnic  period  before  Abraham. 
He  finds  it  asserted  of  Messiah  in  Psalm  ex.,  that  "he  is 
a  Priest  for  ever  after  the  manner  or  order  of  Melchizedek." 
It  was  no  doubt  the  intention  of  the  author  of  that  psalm 
to  claim  for  Messiah  the  double  office  of  Priest  and  King ; 
and  in  order  to  find  a  true  historical  type  of  such  a  union, 
he  has  to  go  back  to  that  primitive  age  in  which  the  office 
of  the  Priesthood  was  not  yet  restricted  by  tribal  or  family 
distinctions,  when  still  the  royal  head  of  the  state  might 
represent  it  before  God,  in  religious  service. 

Now  it  is  very  important  that  we  should  not  misunder- 
stand the  manner  in  which  this  historical  and  prophetic 
material  is  treated  by  our  author.  He  conceives  himself 
justified  in  instituting  a  comparison  between  Jesus  and 
Melchizedek,  because  already  such  a  comparison  had  been 
suggested  by  the  spirit  of  prophecy.  And  so  far,  I  imagine, 
he  does  no  more  than  a  sober  modern  expositor  might  have 
done.  Messiah  was  to  combine  in  His  own  Person  the 
offices  of  King  and  Priest,  just  as  they  had  been  combined 
in  the  person  of  Melchizedek.  But  now,  having  got  this 
firm  foothold  in  history  and  prophecy,  he  proceeds,  in  the 
1  well-known  Philonic  and  Alexandrian  method,  to  draw  out 
jthis  comparison  into  the  minutest  details.  The  works  of 
Philo  enable  us  thoroughly  to  understand  this.  Philo  held 
firmly  the  abstract  theories  of  the  Platonic  philosophy. 
To  him  these  theories  represented  absolute  truth.  But 
if  the  Platonic  theories  were  true,  they  must,  he  thought, 


THE    HEBREW   APOSTASY.  1 89 

be  either  stated  or  symbolically  represented  in  that  Word 
of  God  which  was  also  absolutely  true.  He  had  not  learnt, 
as  we  have,  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  which  reveal  to  us  the 
nature  of  God  and  His  relation  to  men  might  possibly 
neglect  altogether,  as  outside  the  scope  of  its  teaching, 
philosophical  and  scientific  speculations.  Philo  believed 
that  it  must  contain  all  truth,  and  therefore  it  was  for  him 
to  read  mto  revelation  all  the  speculative  truths  of  the 
Platonic  philosophy.  His  method  was  misleading,  and 
therefore  we  need  not  wonder  that  the  results  of  its 
application  are  unsatisfactory. 

Now,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  author  of  our  Epistle  adopts 
the  method  of  Philo.  Of  two  things  he  is  assured  :  firstly, 
of  the  true  nature  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and,  secondly, 
of  the  real  correspondence  between  Christ  and  Melchizedek. 
What  remains,  then  (and  in  this  inference  we  detect  the 
influence  of  Philo),  but  to  seek  in  the  short  historical 
account  of  Melchizedek  as  many  points  of  resemblance  as 
possible  to  the  nature  and  work  of  Christ  ?  This  comparison 
is  very  valuable  to  us,  because  it  shows  us  what  the  author 
believed  about  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  valuable  to  us,  even 
when  we  most  dissent  from  some  of  its  results  considered 
as  valid  historical  correspondences.  Take  one  point  by 
way  of  illustration.  Nothing  is  said  in  the  Old  Testament 
of  the  natural  descent  of  Melchizedek.  This  circumstance 
may  mean  nothing  more  to  us  than  that  in  so  brief  a  record 
it  was  not  necessary  to  the  writer's  purpose  to  notice  such 
a  matter.  To  our  author,  however,  it  furnishes  the  occasion 
for  a  remarkable  comparison.  Melchizedek  in  the  sacred 
record  is  "  without  father,  mother,  or  genealogy,"  and  this 
suggests  to  him  that  not  merely  in  the  Word  of  God,  but 
also  in  fact,  the  Priesthood  of  the  Lord  Jesus  was  not 
dependent  on  descent,  or  limited  by  conditions  of  time. 


I  go         DANGERS    OF   THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

The  comparison  is  only  glanced  at  as  contributing  an 
element  to  the  great  conclusion  that  He  who  is  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek  "  abideth  a  priest  continually  ;  "  still 
it  is  eminently  Philonic.  In  the  same  manner  Philo  finds 
in  the  fact  that  the  sacred  record  does  not  mention  Sarah's 
mother,  an  indication  of  the  truth  that  the  mind  which  loves 
wisdom  is  not  born  "of  the  material  perceptible  to  the 
senses,"  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  maternal  origin  of 
knowledge.  To  us  such  correspondences  are  only  valuable 
as  showing  what  the  inspired  author  believed  about  Jesus 
Christ ;  but  to  his  contemporaries  at  Alexandria  they  were 
weighty  and  significant.  We  may  regard  them,  therefore, 
as  means  of  establishing  conclusions,  certain  in  themselves, 
by  considerations  which  would  have  weight  among  those  to 
whom  they  were  addressed. 

If,  however,  some  of  the  minor  details  of  this  comparison 
have  only  an  indirect  value  for  us,  the  fact  that  it  was  made, 
that  the  one  author  of  the  New  Testament  who  treats 
specifically  upon  the  sacrificial  system  of  the  Jews  compares 
it  in  some  points,  to  its  disadvantage,  with  the  universal 
system  of  ethnic  sacrifice  which  preceded  it,  is  of  the  very 
gravest  meaning  and  importance.  It  reminds  us  that  the 
practice  of  sacrifice  did  not  originate  in  any  recorded  Divine 
command ;  that,  existing  before  the  establishment  of  the 
Mosaic  law,  it  was  taken  on  and  adopted,  as  to  its  outward 
framework  and  main  significance ;  and  that,  therefore,  it 
will  greatly  help  us  to  discover  the  central  thought  which  it 
was  intended  to  express,  if  we  can  learn  something  about 
those  ethnic  sacrifices,  especially  of  the  Semitic  races, 
which  were  taken  up  into  the  worship  of  the  covenant 
people,  to  be  used,  improved,  and  spiritualized. 

The  chosen  people  were  an  offshoot  of  the  Semitic  race. 
Since,  therefore,  any  religious  customs  and  traditions  which 


THE    HEBREW   APOSTASY.  I9I 

they  may  have  inherited  from  the  past  would  certainly  be 
Semitic,  it  becomes  of  great  importance  in  any  inquiry 
about  the  meaning  of  the  Biblical  sacrifices,  to  ascertain, 
if  we  can,  what  was  the  ruling  idea  of  their  sacrificial 
institutions,  among  the  Semitic  tribes,  before  they  passed 
them  on  into  the  covenant  family.  This  inquiry  has  the 
more  importance  because  the  sacrificial  worship  of  the 
Hebrews,  as  it  is  described  to  us  in  the  Pentateuch,  includes 
within  it  many  elements  which  were  added  at  a  comparatively 
late  period.  A  people's  worship  follows,  though  it  may  be 
slowly,  its  social  and  religious  development.  When  a  nation 
passes  out  of  the  pastoral  into  the  agricultural  state  of  life, 
its  offerings  increase  in  number  and  diversity  ;  when  the 
acquisition  of  private  property  becomes  general,  sacrifices 
have  a  tendency  to  assume  the  character  of  a  tribute,  paid 
by  the  tribe  to  its  Divine  over-Lord.  And,  again,  when 
the  conception  of  God's  nature  and  character  is  refined, 
enlarged,  and  spiritualized,  on  the  one  side  the  sense  of  sin 
is  deepened,  and  on  the  other  that  feeling  is  expressed  by 
a  corresponding  development  and  moralizing  of  sacrificia. 
offerings.  In  a  system  of  sacrifice  which  has  thus  em- 
bodied a  great  diversity  of  social  and  religious  changes,  it 
is  extremely  difficult  to  detect  the  master-thought  of  the 
whole  institution,  and  it  will  help  us  greatly  to  do  this  if  we 
can  study  it  at  an  early  stage  of  its  development,  when  it 
has  a  comparatively  simple  form. 

Can  we  do  this,  it  may  be  asked,  in  the  case  of  the 
Hebrew  sacrifices  ?  Before  last  year,  in  the  course  of  which 
Professor  Robertson  Smith  published  his  "  Religion  of  the 
Semites,"  I  should  have  hesitated  to  make  the  attempt. 
For  although  we  possessed  a  great  mass  of  miscellaneous 
information  upon  the  subject  of  ethnic  sacrifice,  it  had  not 
been  carefully  sifted,  so  as  to  separate  the  Semitic  traditions 


192         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

from  the  rest,  and  to  resolve  these  latter  into  their  con- 
stituent elements.  Now,  however,  it  is  not  impossible,  I 
believe,  to  give  an  approximately  definite  answer  to  the 
important  question  which  I  have  started. 

The  trustworthiness  of  the  answer  depends,  not  so  much 
on  the  antiquity  of  the  records  to  be  examined,  as  on  the 
geographical  relations  of  the  Semitic  peoples.  Their  most 
ancient  records  are  to  be  found  amongst  the  cuneiform 
inscriptions  of  Chaldaea.  But  then  the  most  ancient 
civilization  of  that  interesting  country  was  not  of  Semitic 
origin.  It  was  due  to  the  genius  of  a  probably  Cushite 
people.  The  Semites  came  into  the  land  as  conquerors, 
and  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  conquerors  of  Greece, 
and  of  the  barbarian  conquerors  of  Rome,  they  adopted 
the  civihzation  and  institutions  of  the  vanquished  people. 
How  much,  then,  is  Cushite  and  how  much  Semitic  in  the 
earliest  accounts  of  Semitic  life  in  Mesopotamia  it  would 
be  difficult  to  determine.  We  must  look  for  reliable  infor- 
mation from  some  other  quarter.  In  seeking  it,  we  are 
greatly  helped  by  the  geographical  relations  of  the  Semitic 
races,  and  by  the  unchangeableness  of  the  nomad  life  of 
Arabia. 

Arabia  has  been  in  all  ages  the  home  and  central  fortress 
of  the  Semites.  From  it,  as  from  a  centre,  they  spread  out 
as  conquerors,  during  the  ages  before  Christ,  into  a  limited 
and  well-defined  region  of  the  world.  If  we  neglect  some 
possible  early  incursions  into  Ethiopia,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  wave  of  their  conquests  broke  against  the  barriers  of 
the  mountains  of  Elam  on  the  east  and  of  those  of  the 
Taurus  on  the  north  ;  and  never  passed  far  beyond  those 
barriers.  This  fact  gives  to  Arabia  its  special  character  as 
the  native  hearth  and  home  of  Semitic  life.  If  then  we 
can  ascertain  what  was  the  ruling  idea  of  Semitic  sacrifice, 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  1 93 

as  represented  to  us  in  the  unchanging  pastoral  hfe  of 
Arabia,  we  shall  be  able  to  approach  the  study  of  the 
complicated  system  of  Hebrew  sacrifice  with  great  advantage. 
We  shall  possess  a  valuable  key  to  the  meaning  of  that 
sacrificial  system  which  the  ancestors  of  the  Beni-Israel 
took  with  them  from  their  motherland,  and  which  furnished 
a  formal  framework  to  that  Hebrew  system  which  was 
developed  out  of  it,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of 
God. 

I  can  do  no  more  of  course  at  present  than  give  you  the 
merest  outline  of  the  results  of  the  wide  and  very  careful 
study  of  the  subject  which  has  been  made  by  Professor 
Robertson  Smith. 

First,  then,  there  is  clear  evidence  that  there  was  a  time 
very  long  ago,  when  men  believed  that  they  shared  a 
common  life  with  their  god  and  their  domestic  animals. 
The  bond  of  that  life,  as  conceived  by  them,  was  a  purely 
physical  bond.  So  long  as  that  bond  remained  unbroken, 
their  tribal  god  was  bound  to  help  and  defend  them  ;  to 
help  them  by  the  gift  of  those  simple  physical  necessaries 
which  belonged  to  their  pastoral  existence,  and  to  defend 
them  from  those  enemies,  human  and  ghostly,  with  whom 
their  tribal  quarrels  brought  them  into  conflict.  In  pros- 
perous times,  when  food  was  plentiful  and  there  was  peace 
in  his  borders,  the  ancient  Semite  concluded  that  the 
tribe  and  its  god  were  in  harmony.  He  was  thus  religious, 
in  the  sense  that  he  had  full  trust  and  confidence  in  his 
God  ;  but  as  the  tie  which  bound  them  was  rather  physical 
than  moral,  his  religion  had  probably  but  little  effect  on 
his  conduct  to  his  neighbour.  When,  however,  the  peaceful 
and  happy  routine  of  his  life  was  broken  by  calamity,  when 
the  threatening  clouds  of  drought,  famine,  or  war  began 
to  gather  in  the    bright  sky  of   his  careless  life,  then  he 

13 


194         DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

concluded  that  the  god  of  his  tribe  was  displeased,  and 
was  punishing  him  and  his  neighbours  for  some  witting  or 
unwitting  offence.  The  strong  bond  of  the  common  life, 
which  secured  the  help  and  protection  of  the  god,  was 
broken  or  loosened,  and  must  be  renewed  and  re-tied. 
But  how  could  this  be  done  ?  Only,  as  it  seemed  to  him, 
in  one  way.  The  god  and  his  people  must  partake  anew 
of  the  sacred  life  which  bound  them  together,  by  means  of 
a  public  religious  ceremony.  But  where  were  they  to  obtain 
the  materials  for  such  a  solemn  participation  ?  How  could 
they  lay  their  hands  on  that  sacred  life  which  they  possessed 
in  common  with  their  god  ?  Their  firm  belief  that  this 
life  was  shared  by  their  domestic  animals,  or  by  animals  in 
their  very  nature  of  divine  kinship,  indicated  a  way  to  their 
end.  The  life  of  the  tribe  they  believed  to  be  carried  in 
its  blood,  and  since  certain  animals  were  of  kin  to  them 
and  their  god,  if  they  could  only  share  with  their  god  the 
blood  of  such  animals  they  believed  that  the  broken  com- 
munion would  be  restored.  To  obtain  the  blood  they  slew 
the  animal.  Then  they  gave  to  the  god  his  share  of  the 
blood,  by  pouring  it  upon  his  pillar  or  rough  altar ;  while 
in  the  earliest  and  rudest  ages  the  tribe  drank  the  remainder. 
With  the  advance  of  civilization,  this  blood-draught  became 
more  and  more  repugnant  to  them,  and  then  for  drinking 
they  substituted  the  sprinkling  of  the  worshippers,  or  a 
feast  upon  the  flesh  of  the  victim. 

Once  again,  as  time  went  on,  and  ideas  grew  more 
refined,  it  became  difficult  to  believe  that  animals  really 
shared  the  life  which  was  common  to  the  god  and  his 
worshippers.  As  men  consciously  rose  in  the  scale  of  moral 
and  intellectual  life  their  conception  of  the  nature  of  God 
became  spiritualized,  and  the  gulf  between  such  a  God 
and  the  beasts  of  the  stall  widened  until  it  became  un- 


THE    HEBREW   APOSTASV.  tgS 

bridgable.  Grave  doubts  must  then  have  arisen  whether 
the  sacred  Hfe  were  in  truth  carried  by  the  blood  of  an 
animal,  and  whether,  therefore,  the  customary  sacrifices  had 
power  to  re-tie  that  vital  bond  which  transgression  of  some 
kind  had  broken.  What  in  this  terrible  perplexity  were 
they  to  do?  Re-establish  the  broken  link  in  some  way 
they  must ;  and  how  could  that  be  possible,  they  reasoned, 
except  by  a  common  Divine  and  human  participation  in  the 
sacred  life  ?  From  the  obvious  answer  to  this  question 
they  must  have  shrunk  at  first  in  horror  and  dismay.  If 
they  killed  a  man  they  would  certainly  get  possession  of  the 
sacred  blood,  and  so  might  as  certainly  restore  the  lost 
peace  and  prosperity.  But  might  they,  could  they,  do  this 
awful  thing  ?  Was  not  the  shrinking  of  feeling  which  they 
experienced  when  they  thought  of  it  the  very  voice  of  God 
within,  and  could  they  disobey  God  in  order  to  please 
God  ?  So,  perhaps,  at  first  they  thought.  But  in  some 
terrible  time,  when  wives  and  children  were  perishing  in  the 
drought  or  pestilence,  or  when  tribesmen  were  being  slain 
by  hundreds  in  some  disastrous  war,  the  horror  of  the  pre- 
sent suffering  overbore  the  horror  of  natural  repugnance, 
and  they  offered  a  human  sacrifice.  Only,  it  would  seem, 
in  great  straits,  or  for  great  purposes,  were  these  sacrifices 
yielded  throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  heathen  world ; 
but  when  we  see  how  the  habit  of  doing  the  direst  deeds 
(as  of  burning  religious  enemies)  can  rob  such  deeds  of 
their  horror,  we  shall  be  prepared  to  expect,  as  we  find, 
that  among  some  especially  superstitious  nations,  human 
sacrifices  became  terribly  common. 

Again,  the  advance  of  larger  views  and  milder  manners 
made  human  sacrifices  appear  intolerably  barbarous,  and 
inspired  the  doubt  whether  God  could  be  really  pleased 
with   them.      And   then   came    the    humanizing   thought, 


196         DANGERS    OF   THE   APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

revealed  by  God  to  Abraham,  that  the  ram  caught  in  the 
thicket  by  his  horns  might  be  offered  instead  of  the  son. 

Professor  Robertson  Smith  has  shown  that  this  was  the 
real  succession  of  events,  and  that  the  common  idea  that 
human  sacrifice  was  the  most  ancient  is  not  borne  out  by 
facts. 

And  now  let  us  ask,  What  is  the  central  ruhng  idea  of  ancient 
Semitic  sacrifice,  as  revealed  by  this  careful  examination  ? 
Plainly  it  is  this  :  that  communion  between  a  god  and  his 
worshippers  can  only  be  kept  up,  or  renewed  when  broken, 
by  the  solemn  participation  of  God  and  man  in  a  common 
sacred  life.  It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  this  discovery  as  a  directive  fact  in  the  study  of  the 
sacred  Scriptures,  whether  they  refer  to  the  ethnic  or  the 
covenant  state  of  life.  If  the  ancestors  of  Israel  thought 
thus  of  sacrifice,  it  is  certain  that  the  conception  would 
never  be  wholly  lost  while  sacrifice  continued  to  be  offered  : 
and  thus  the  inquiry  becomes  not  less '  interesting  than 
important,  can  we  detect  the  influence  of  this  ruling  idea 
in  the  sacrificial  system  of  the  chosen  people  ? 

The  ethnic  practice  which  we  1  have  reviewed  belongs  to 
a  period  in  Semitic  history  long  anterior  to  the  days  of 
Abraham.  We  might,  therefore,  naturally  expect  that  some 
of  its  main  features  would  appear  in  the  earliest  account  of 
patriarchal  sacrifices.  In  this  expectation,  however,  we  are 
disappointed.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that 
this  disappointment  arises,  not  from  the  actual  presence  of 
alien  or  strange  elements,  but  from  the  extreme  brevity  of 
the  account.  For  the  most  part  nothing  is  recorded  of  the 
patriarchal  practice  but  the  erection  of  an  altar  or  pillar  of 
sacrifice.  The  three  exceptions  are,  the  sacrifice  of  Noah, 
the  offering  of  Isaac,  and  the  erection  by  Jacob  of  a  pillar 
at  Bethel;   and  nothing  is  said  in  the  account  of  any  of 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  197 

these  offerings  of  the  blood  of  the  victims  or  of  its  applica- 
tion. The  offering  of  Noah  is  said  to  have  been  a  burnt- 
offering,  a  form  of  sacrifice  of  comparatively  late  introduction. 
The  archaic  form  of  expression  shows,  however,  that  the 
record  of  this  offering  belongs  to  an  early  period  of  the 
epoch  of  burnt  sacrifices.  "  He  offered  burnt-offerings,"  it 
is  said,  "and  the  Lord  smelled  the  sweet  savour."  This 
shows  us  that  men  had  then  so  far  spiritualized  their  idea 
of  God  that  they  thought  it  fitter  to  send  up  to  Him  their 
sacrifice  in  the  etherealized  form  of  altar-smoke  than  in  the 
grosser  form  of  blood.  In  the  offering  of  Isaac,  nothing 
is  said  about  the  application  of  the  blood,  because  in  this 
case  the  blood  of  the  human  victim  was  not  shed ;  and  of 
the  manner  in  which  Abraham  dealt  with  the  blood  of  the 
ram  we  have  no  description.  Jacob  is  said  to  have  poured 
oil  on  the  pillar  at  Bethel.  But  obviously  a  homeless  fugi- 
tive would  have  no  animal  to  offer,  and  the  oil  which  he 
used  is  the  later  representative  of  the  fat  of  a  victim,  in 
which,  as  in  the  blood,  the  life  was  supposed  to  have 
its  seat. 

Baffled  in  this  direction,  we  naturally  turn  next  to  that 
primary  covenant  sacrifice  which  was  offered  during  the 
period  which  intervened  between  the  patriarchal  age  and 
the  formal  publication  of  the  Levitical  law  of  sacrifice. 
Of  this  we  have  fortunately  a  pretty  full  account,  and  we 
detect  in  it  at  once  a  remarkable  survival  of  primitive 
practice.  The  sacrifice  is  offered,  not  by  Aaron,  or  by 
priests  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  but  by  "twelve  young  men 
of  the  children  of  Israel,"  manifestly  selected  to  represent 
the  twelve  tribes  in  the  vigour  and  freshness  of  their  life. 
We  have  before  us  here  the  record  of  the  most  ancient 
covenant  sacrifice  of  which  Holy  Scripture  gives  us  any 
detailed  description.     And  now,  what  does  it   tell   us  of 


IQO  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

the  manner  in  which  Moses  dealt  with  the  blood  of  the 
burnt-  and  peace-offerings  ?  With  half  of  it,  we  are  told, 
he  sprinkled  the  altar,  assigning  it  thus  to  God,  as  His 
share  of  the  common  sacred  life  ;  taking  afterwards  the 
other  half,  which  he  had  put  into  basons,  and  sprinkling 
it  on  the  people,  as  a  sign  that  they  partook  with  God  in 
the  virtue  of  the  sacrifice.  The  spiritual  effect  of  this 
ceremony  can  hardly  be  better  stated  than  in  the  following 
words  of  Bishop  Westcott :  "  So  the  human  desire  was 
fulfilled  and  justified.  The  blood  of  the  covenant,  the 
power  of  a  new  life,  made  available  for  the  people  of  God, 
enabled  them  to  hold  communion  with  Him."  It  is  a 
refined  form  of  the  ancient  belief  that  God  and  man  were 
brought  into  amicable  and  grace-bringing  communion,  by 
sharing  anew  and  together  the  life  which  was  common  to 
both. 

"  The  teaching  thus  broadly  given  in  the  consecration  of 
the  people  to  God,  found  a  more  detailed  exposition  in  the 
consecration  of  the  priests,  the  representatives  of  the  people 
in  the  Divine  service."  The  very  appointment  of  the  priests 
to  come  between  man  and  Crod  indicated  a  deepening 
sense  of  sin,  and  of  its  power  to  separate  man  from  God, 
and  to  make  him  unfit  for  Divine  service.  We  are  not  sur- 
prised, then,  to  find  that  in  the  consecration  of  the  priests 
this  new  consciousness  receives  clear  and  emphatic  ex- 
pression. First,  the  altar  at  which  the  priests  officiated  is 
felt  to  have  been  defiled  by  the  touch  of  sinful  ministers. 
It,  therefore,  is  first  purified  by  having  the  blood  of  the 
sacrifice  applied  to  it,  and  poured  out  at  its  base  ;  and  by 
having  the  other  special  seats  of  life,  the  fat  of  the  inwards, 
the  caul  of  the  liver,  and  the  kidneys  with  their  fat,  burnt 
upon  it.  The  sacred  life  touches  it,  and  it  is  clean.  Then 
a  ram  is  slain  as  a  burnt-offering,  for  a  sweet  savour.     After- 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  1 99 

wards  a  second  ram  is  slain,  called  expressly  "the  ram  of 
consecration,"  to  purify  the  ministers,  as  well  as  the  place 
of  their  service.  And  now,  again,  we  find  a  repetition  of 
the  most  ancient  Semitic  custom.  Part  of  the  blood  of  this 
victim  is  sprinkled  on  the  altar,  and  thus  given  to  God ; 
while  part  of  it  is  put  upon  the  ear,  thumb,  and  foot  of  the 
priests,  that,  in  the  virtue  of  the  life  which  it  represents, 
and  which  is  thus  applied  to  them,  they  may  hear,  and 
work,  and  walk  as  God  would  have  them  to  do. 

The  deep  sense  of  sin  which  is  here  expressed  had 
manifestly  arisen  from  Israel's  peculiar  view  of  the  character 
of  God.  He  was  no  longer  for  them  mainly  the  God  of  ^ 
the  tribe,  sharing  their  life,  and  bound  to  help  and  defend 
them  so  long  as  they  offered  to  Him  the  customary  gifts 
and  services.  He  was,  above  all,  the  God  of  righteous- 
ness ;  so  righteous  in  His  very  essence  that  He  could 
not  bless  the  wicked,  even  among  those  who  worshipped 
Him.  The  lofty  prophetic  conception  of  God  changed 
everything.  It  inspired  all  thought,  controlled  all  action, 
and  determined  the  form  and  spirit  of  all  sacrifice  and 
service.  It  lifted  the  religion  of  Israel  into  a  loftier  plane, 
and  made  it  fit  to  become  the  religion  of  the  whole  earth. 
Above  all,  it  necessarily  deepened  the  awful  apprehension 
of  the  power  of  sin  to  separate  man  from  God ;  and  so  led 
to  that  remarkable  development  of  sin-offerings  of  which 
we  have  just  seen  a  specimen. 

Nowhere,  however,  does  this  soul-subduing  sense  of  sin 
find  such  solemn  expression  as  in  the  offerings  of  the  Great 
Day  of  Atonement.  How  shuddering  a  sense  of  the  horror 
of  sin  must  the  worshippers  have  felt  when  they  saw  the 
goat  for  Azazel,  on  the  head  of  which  Aaron  had  laid 
the  guilt  and  curse  of  Israel's  offences,  sent  alone  into  the 
burning  waste,  into  eternal  separation !     And  how  deep  a 


200  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

conviction  must  they  not  have  gained  of  the  pervasive 
contagiousness  of  sin,  of  its  power  to  defile  and  contaminate 
everything  which  it  touched,  when  they  waited  without  in 
their  silent  fast,  while  the  High  Priest  cleansed,  with  the 
blood  of  sacrifice,  not  only  the  great  brazen  altar  and  the 
holy  place  of  the  priests'  ordinary  ministry,  but  even  that 
Holy  of  Holies,  with  its  mystic  symbols,  the  very  seat  and 
throne  of  the  Most  High,  into  which  only  one  might  go, 
once  a  year,  to  represent  a  sinful  people  !  All  this  wonder- 
ful development  and  moralizing  of  sacrifice  was  peculiar  to 
Israel.  It  was  the  outward  sign  that  there  dwelt  in  the 
heart  of  it  a  Divine  spirit  of  holiness,  not  only  sanctifying 
and  uplifting  souls,  but  so  bending,  changing,  and  moulding 
the  very  framework  of  its  archaic  customs  as  to  make  these 
signs  and  types  of  new  spiritual  thoughts  about  God. 

Still  throughout  these  sacrifices,  and  throughout  that 
whole  complicated  system  of  sin-offerings,  burnt-offerings, 
and  peace-offerings,  by  means  of  which  the  various  elements 
of  the  great  idea  of  sacrifice  were  spread  out  and  applied 
to  the  whole  range  of  man's  commerce  with  heaven,  we 
observe,  almost  with  wonder,  the  maintenance  of  the 
primitive  ruling  thought,  that  sacrifice  is  a  means  whereby 
God  and  man  may  be  drawn  into  or  kept  in  communion, 
by  mutual  participation  in  a  common  sacred  life.  Ideas 
of  tribute,  furnished  by  the  later  institution  of  fixed 
property,  may,  it  is  true,  find  their  representation  in  some 
of  the  minor  details  of  the  system,  but  even  in  the  peace- 
offerings  designed  to  represent  more  fully  man's  feasting 
upon  the  sacred  life,  the  original  ruling  idea  comes  out,  as 
well  in  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  as  in  the  burning  of  the 
fat,  that  God  still  partakes  with  man,  and  that  it  is  the 
life-carrying  blood  which  is  the  means  of  their  communion. 
And,  lest  there  should  be  any  mistake  upon  this  point. 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.    ..  20I 

the  children  of  Israel  are  stringently  commanded  to  abstain 
from  eating  blood,  because  of  its  excellent  nature  and  office. 
"  Whatsoever  man  there  be  .  .  .  that  eateth  any  manner  of 
blood,  I  will  set  My  face  against  that  soul.  .  .  .  For  the  life 
of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood  :  and  I  have  given  it  to  you  upon 
the  altar  to  make  atonement  for  your  souls :  for  it  is  the 
blood  that  maketh  atonement,  by  reason  of  the  life."  It 
is  not,  as  some  have  imagined  and  taught,  the  death  of  the 
animal  which  gives  value  to  its  blood.  On  the  contrary, 
its  whole  value  depends  on  the  life  which  it  carries.  Death 
is  a  mere  collateral  accident  in  the  process  of  sacrifice.  It 
is  simply  the  means  of  liberating  that  sacred  stream  which 
carries  the  life.  And  the  blood  maketh  atonement,  not  by 
reason  of  the  death,  but  by  reason  of  the  life. 

As  if  further  to  emphasize  this  significant  fact,  it  is  again 
commanded  in  the  law  :  "  Ye  shall  eat  no  fat  of  ox,  or 
sheep,  or  goat.  For  whosoever  eateth  the  fat  of  the  beast 
of  which  men  offer  an  offering  made  by  fire  unto  the  Lord, 
even  the  soul  that  eateth  it  shall  be  cut  off  from  his 
people."  No  fat  of  a  sacrificial  beast  is  to  be  eaten,  lest 
in  eating  it  men  should  partake  of  that  sacred  portion  of 
the  fat  which  is  sent  up  in  the  altar-smoke  as  a  sweet 
savour  to  God. 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  was  the  fat  of  the  kidneys  and 
inwards  devoted  to  this  specially  sacred  purpose  ?  Because 
among  all  primitive  peoples,  as  among  the  aborigines  of 
Australia  to-day,  those  inward  organs  are  deemed  the  special 
seats  of  life.  It  was  the  life  which  they  represented  to  the 
ancient  Semites,  and  it  is  the  life  which  they  symbolize  in 
the  offerings  of  Israel :  that  sacred  life  which  men  share 
with  God,  in  the  maintenance  of  which  they  are  good  and 
happy ;  by  the  restoration  of  which  (if  it  have  been  lost), 
they  are  delivered  from  the  misery  and  defilement  of  sin. 


202  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

I  have  compared  to-day  the  ethnic  and  Jewish  sacrifices, 
and  surely  if  the  comparison  were  carried  no  farther  we 
could  not  fail  to  have  igathered  most  precious  and  soul- 
inspiring  lessons.  We  find  that  the  Jewish  system  of 
sacrifice  held  fast,  while  developing  and  purifying,  the  ruling 
conception  of  the  old  Semitic  world  :  that  of  a  good  and 
prosperous  human  existence,  a  life  held  in  conscious  com- 
munion with  God  was  a  necessary  condition.  And  such, 
too,  is  the  witness  of  the  deepest  and  truest  philosophy  of 
our  own  time.  The  great  word  of  modern  philosophy  is 
not  thought  but  life.  Everything  depends  ultimately,  not 
upon  our  use  of  the  discursive  intellect,  but  upon  the 
normal  intuitions  and  faculties  with  w^hich  we  were  born, 
and  which  we  can  only  hold  from  moment  to  moment  in 
conscious  union  with  God.  Of  the  instincts  of  animals 
this  is  the  only  possible  explanation.  Living  creatures,  so 
low  down  in  the  vital  scale  that  they  are  little  more  than 
lumps  of  protoplasm  without  brain  or  nervous  system, 
perform  actions  which  have  a  purpose;  and  a  purpose, 
moreover,  so  rational  that  to  discern  it  requires  the  effort 
of  the  highest  human  intelligence.  What  is  it,  then,  which 
conceives  that  purpose,  and  aims  at  its  attainment  ?  Shall 
we  say  that  a  brainless  lump  of  protoplasm  understands  the 
conditions  of  vital  propagation,  or  the  laws  of  hydrostatics, 
and  orders  its  actions  in  conformity  therewith  ?  Something 
does.  Some  mind  conceives  and  orders  the  rational  aims 
in  conformity  with  which  the  creature  acts.  What  mind, 
then?  Surely  the  mind  of  that  Great  Being  w^ho  is  the 
basis  and  support  of  this  life,  and  of  all  life  !  No  other 
conclusion  is  possible  to  a  modern  thinker,  adequately 
acquainted  with  the  facts,  than  that  of  one  of  our  most 
famous  living  philosophers,  that  God  is  the  mind  of  the 
instinctive  world.     And  so  far  as  man  is  the  creature  of 


THE    HEBREW    ArOSTASY.  2O3 

instinct  and  intuition  this  conclusion  holds  good  of  him 
also.  And  it  reaches  mucii  farther  than  many  imagine. 
For  in  what  direction  of  our  living  activity  are  we  indepen- 
dent of  instinct  and  intuition  ?  The  passions  which  drive 
us  are  instinctive.  The  conscience  which  directs  us  is 
intuitive.  The  axioms  and  postulates  upon  which  we  build 
the  whole  mighty  structure  of  our  science  and  philosophy 
are  intuitive.  We  are  born  with  these  endowments,  and  we 
cannot  enlarge  or  alter  them.  They  determine  the  direction 
and  limits  of  all  our  thoughts  and  activity.  We  gain  them 
from  God  :  we  keep  them  in  God.  We  see  and  feel  and 
do  that  w^hich,  through  them,  God  determines  that  we 
shall  see  and  feel  and  do. 

But  beyond  these  faculties  there  is  another,  full  of  Divine 
might  and  mystery,  in  which  we  discern  especially  the 
Divine  image,  and  through  which,  to  a  certain  Kmited 
degree,  we  share  the  prerogative  of  the  Divine  freedom  in 
action.  We  have  a  will  which  is  miraculously,  superna- 
turally  free.  The  Divine  thought  and  will  which  absolutely 
determine  instinctive  life  so  far  limit  their  interference  in 
the  human  soul  as  to  leave  a  really  directive  originating 
activity  to  our  will.  We  can  absolutely  choose  whether  we 
will  be  the  master  of  passion  or  its  slave  ;  whether  we  will 
walk  in  the  light  of  reason  or  in  the  darkness  of  ignorance  ; 
whether  we  will  follow  the  bidding  of  conscience  or  rebel 
against  its  authority.  We  can  submit  to  the  urgency  of  the 
Divine  will  of  love  which  speaks  to  us  through  reason  and 
conscience,  or  we  can  resist  it  and  turn  all  our  natural 
powers  into  mere  instruments  of  selfishness.  The  will  to 
love,  and  the  will  to  live  :  between  these  two  we  have  to 
choose,  and  we  can  choose.  And  thus  in  a  true  sense  we 
are  the  creators  of  our  own  character  and  surroundings.  It 
is  blasphemy  against  the  divinest  property  in  man  to  say 


204  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

that  he  is  the  mere  creature  of  his  environment.  No  doubt 
he  has  his  passions  and  desires,  and  the  environment  of  his 
hfe  gives  stimulus  to  these.  But  he  is  the  ruler  and  master 
of  both  :  not  their  creature  and  slave.  If  his  environment 
be  unfitting  and  pernicious,  if  reason  pronounce  it  foolish 
and  conscience  condemn  it  as  unjust,  no  matter  how  potent 
it  be,  though  it  have  been  gathering  strength  through  long 
ages,  and  respect  through  immemorial  prescription,  and 
attachment  to  life  at  a  myriad  points  of  action,  yet  if  it  be 
inequitable,  if  it  be  condemned  at  the  august  assize  of  con- 
science, man  can  break  it  to  pieces,  he  ought  to  break  it  to 
pieces,  as  a  hundred  times  he  has  done,  at  great  crises 
of  his  historical  past.  Man  is  no  mere  fly  upon  the  wheel 
of  fate,  to  be  crushed  by  its  inevitable  revolution ;  he  is  a 
Maker  and  also  a  Destroyer,  a  true  lord  in  God's  universe, 
who,  in  his  own  small  domain,  can  and  must  exercise 
something  of  the  Divine  prerogative  of  freedom. 

Here,  then,  is  the  deep  meaning,  the  decisive  trial  of  his 
life.  Will  he  direct  its  course  along  the  path  which  reason 
shows  to  be  wise  and  conscience  declares  to  be  right,  or  will 
he  use  his  Divine  prerogative  of  automatic  determination  to 
force  the  powers  of  his  life  into  the  service  of  selfish  passion 
and  greed?  This  is  the  great  problem  which  men,  churches, 
and  societies  are  working  out  on  the  w^orldwide  stage  of 
human  life  to-day.  In  this  effort  sacrifice  is  the  word  of 
their  salvation  :  the  sacrifice  of  their  own  selfish  will  to  live 
to  God's  holy  will  to  love  ;  the  sacrifice  of  desire  when  it  is 
inordinate,  of  the  confidence  of  intellect  when  it  is  over- 
weening, of  the  ambition  of  rule  when  it  is  excessive,  at  the 
mandate  of  conscience,  which  is  God's  witness  within. 

Too  often  seduced  by  the  allurements  of  sense  and  the 
splendid  shows  of  the  world,  or  by  the  pride  of  a  false 
independence,  we  refuse  to  make  this  sacrifice.     We  will  be 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  205 

our  own  god :  we  will  shape  our  own  course  :  we  will 
mould  our  own  life  :  we  will  live,  not  to  serve,  but  to  enjoy. 
And  then,  in  conformity  to  the  eternal  law  of  our  being, 
comes  failure  and  depravation  of  all  our  powers,  ebbing  of 
emotion,  darkening  of  intellect,  hardening  of  conscience, 
and  paralysis  of  will.  The  failure  is  not  of  one  power,  but 
of  all  the  powers  of  our  life.  And,  therefore,  if  we  are  to 
be  saved  from  this  shrinking,  narrowing,  darkening,  and 
contamination  of  our  being,  it  must  be,  not  by  this  or  that 
gleam  of  insight,  not  by  this  or  that  check  of  remorse  or 
spasm  of  endeavour,  but  by  the  regeneration  of  our  whole 
nature.  We  must  be  born  anew.  We  must  be  re-united 
to  that  Divine  source  of  loving  will  from  which  there  may 
flow  into  us,  filling  all  the  shrunken  channels  of  action  and 
capacity,  the  regenerating  waters  of  an  eternal  life. 

That  is  what  we  need  to-day  :  what  men  need  in  all  days. 
And  because  the  ancient  ordinances  declared  it  so  plainly, 
because  the  act  of  sacrifice  spoke  the  very  word  of  our 
salvation,  because  the  blood  shared  between  God  and  man 
spoke  so  eloquently  of  life  as  our  supreme  need,  of  God 
as  the  source  of  its  supply,  and  of  union  with  God  as 
the  condition  of  its  maintenance,  therefore  it  was  carried 
by  Moses  into  the  Church  of  the  Covenant,  that  being  there 
separated  from  all  misleading  superstitions  (as  of  divination 
from  the  entrails  of  the  victims),  it  might  be  so  shaped, 
moulded,  and  moralized  as  to  point  forward  to  that  one 
efficacious  Sacrifice  which  was  to  be  the  life  of  the  world. 
Of  the  nature  and  meaning  of  that  Sacrifice  I  must  speak 
at  large  in  my  next  lecture.  Now  I  will  only  remind  you 
that  it  brought  us  precisely  that  which  we  needed,  a  new 
life  of  higher  and  holier  powers,  to  be  gained  and  kept  by 
union  with  Him  who  was  Himself  divinely  and  eternally 
united  to  God. 


206          DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE.  ; 

Oh,  loving  wisdom  of  our  God  !  i 

When  all  was  sin  and  shame,  J 

A  second  Adam  to  the  fight,  j 

And  to  the  rescue  came.  i 

J 

Oh,  wisest  love  !   that  flesh  and  blood.  \ 

Which  did  in  Adam  fail,  -  , 

Should  strive  afresh  against  the  foe —  ' 

Should  strive  and  should  prevail !  I 

And  that  a  higher  gift  than  grace  .! 

Should  flesh  and  blood  refine  :  ] 

God's  Presence,  and  His  very  Self,  J 

And  Essence  all-Divine.  : 

Praise  to  the  Holiest  in  the  height,  .    ; 

And  in  the  depth  be  praise  ;  , 

In  all  His  works  most  wonderful,  '  ' 


III. 

I  ENDEAVOURED  to  trace,  in  my  last  lecture,  the  historical 
relation  between  the  ethnic  and  covenant  sacrifices,  and 
the  comparison  revealed  to  us  two  important  facts  :  firstly, 
that  there  were  carried  over  into  the  covenant  sacrifices 
precisely  those  primitive  rites  which  denoted  the  belief  that 
through  sacrifice  God  and  man  partook  of  a  common  sacred 
nature ;  and  secondly,  that  the  idea  thus  denoted  was  so 
developed  and  moralized  in  the  complicated  system  of 
Jewish  sacrifices,  as  to  give  expression  to  the  growing 
belief  in  the  spirituality  of  God  and  the  sinfulness  of  man. 

To-night  we  are  to  compare  those  spiritualized  ordinances 
of  the  Old  Dispensation  with  that  One  Sufiicient  Sacrifice 
of  which  they  were  the  di\anely-appointed  types  and  fore- 
shadowings. 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  were  those  sacrifices  of  beasts, 
with  all  their  materialistic  and  superstitious  suggestions, 
retained  in  a  religion  of  which  the  great  aim  was  to 
spiritualize  men's  conceptions  of  God  ?  That  is  a  question 
more  easily  asked  than  answered,  for  how  can  anyone 
pretend  to  comprehend  the  deep  designs  of  the  Eternal  ? 
The  best  and  most  we  can  do  is  to  throw  the  light  of  the 
divinely-accomplished  result  upon  the  several  stages  of 
the  process  which  led  to  it. 

First,  then,  in  reference  to  the  imperfections  of  the  Mosaic 
law,  to  the  rudeness  of  its  forms,  and  the  tentativeness  of 
its  moral  advances,  our  Saviour  has  told  us  that  these  things 


208  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

were  suffered  because  of  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts. 
Such  truths  were  set  before  the  rude  tribes  of  the  Beni- 
Israel  as  were  within  the  reach  of  their  understanding,  and 
such  rites  of  their  Semitic  past  were  retained  as  would  on 
the  one  hand  keep  up  the  continuity  of  their  thought  and 
Hfe,  and  on  the  other  be  capable,  with  the  necessary 
adaptations,  of  representing,  not  altogether  unworthily,  the 
deepest  truths  of  spiritual  religion.  If  I  am  now  asked 
what  truths  the  particular  practice  of  sacrifice  was  able  to 
express,  I  answer :  firstly,  the  truth  that  our  natural  life 
could  only  be  raised  to  its  highest  and  holiest  power 
when  it  was  lived  in  conscious  communion  with  God ;  and 
secondly,  that  it  could  be  only  so  lived  in  virtue  of  a 
continual  sacrifice  and  self-surrender  of  the  finite  to  the 
Infinite  will.  These  truths  were  represented  with  more  or 
less  clearness  by  every  form  of  the  practice.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  obvious  that  the  moral  and  spiritual  v*alue  of  this 
teaching  would  depend  very  largely,  if  not  wholly,  upon 
the  conception  which  was  formed  in  any  particular  age  of 
the  nature  of  the  life  which  was  offered  in  sacrifice.  So 
long  as  it  was  possible  to  believe  that  this  life  could  be 
shared  by  domestic  animals,  it  must  have  been  thought  of 
rather  as  something  physical  than  as  anything  spiritual.  In 
proportion,  however,  as  the  sons  of  Israel  were  taught  by 
God's  Spirit  the  secret  and  meaning  of  their  human  per- 
sonality, that  it  only  attained  its  true  ideal  in  the  perfection 
of  its  moral  qualities,  in  its  piety,  purity,  courage,  pity,  and 
free  self-surrender  to  the  will  of  God,  the  offering  of  the 
sacrifice  of  sheep  and  oxen  would  be  seen  more  clearly 
to  have  a  representative  rather  than  a  substantial  value. 
The  blood  of  the  slain  beast  did  not  carry,  it  only  represented, 
that  life  of  moral  self-surrender  which  the  worshipper  shared 
with  the  Deity.     The  sacrifice  still  meant,  indeed,  the  offer- 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  2O9 

ing  to  God,  and  gaining  for  self  of  a  common  life,  but 
the  worshipper's  view  of  the  nature  of  that  hfe  would  be 
changed.  It  was  seen  to  be  a  self-conscious,  self-deter- 
mining, self-surrendering  life,  a  Hfe  which  it  was  possible 
for  the  Divine  Love  to  share,  and  which  it  was  elevation 
and  redemption  for  human  piety  to  offer.  The  practice  of 
sacrifice  could  only  become  a  morally  purifying  and  ele- 
vating worship  when  it  was  accompanied  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  ail  this.  It  became  a  hindrance  and  a  degradation 
if  it  remained  nothing  more  than  the  primitive  Semite 
thought  that  it  was.  Of  what  nature  could  the  God  or  the 
worshipper  be  whose  life  was  really  shared  by  an  animal  ? 
To  think  such  a  communion  possible  was  to  linger  still 
among  the  savage  thoughts  and  feelings  of  earlier  and 
animal-like  men. 

Unless,  therefore,  the  original  idea  of  sacrifice  took 
up  and  absorbed  the  advancing  prophetic  consciousness 
that  God  was  a  Spirit,  and  man  a  creature  whose  aims 
should  correspond  to  his  destiny,  whose  ceaseless  endeavour 
it  should  be  to  rise  out  of  the  animal  into  the  spiritual  life, 
the  offering  of  sacrifice  might  have  a  positively  injurious 
effect.  And  such,  in  fact,  in  the  prophetic  age,  was  the 
actual  result. 

The  connection  of  the  prophetic  schools  with  the  practice 
of  sacrifice  is  a  very  interesting  subject  of  inquiry,  and  one 
which  has  been  too  much  neglected.  The  first  indication 
which  we  obtain  of  the  prophetic  disapproval,  or,  at  least, 
depreciation,  of  sacrifice  is  in  connection  with  the  history 
of  Samuel,  the  great  founder  of  the  prophetic  schools  of 
Israel.  King  Saul  was  pre-eminently  a  man  of  the  people. 
He  had  all  their  excellences  and  defects.  A  capable  and 
courageous  soldier,  simple  in  his  tastes,  and  full  of  the 
energy  of  a  primitive  faith,  he  was  yet  narrow  in  thought, 

14 


2IO  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

superstitious  in  feeling,  and  largely  tainted  with  the  religious 
rudeness  of  the  age  of  the  Judges.  With  respect  to  sacrifice, 
especially,  he  seems  to  have  had  a  trust  in  it  as  superstitious 
as  that  which  Micah  reposed  in  his  domestic  Levite.  The 
mere  offering  of  it  would  be  of  use.  The  want  of  it  might 
bring  disaster  and  the  displeasure  of  Jehovah.  In  itself  it 
was  to  Saul  of  so  magic  a  quality  that,  rather  than  be  without 
it,  he  would  take  the  office  of  priest  upon  himself  It  was 
on  an  occasion  when,  in  his  ritualistic  enthusiasm,  he  had 
suffered  the  people  to  offer  sacrifices  to  God  of  the  beasts 
which  he  had  been  directed  to  destroy,  that  Samuel  pro- 
nounced the  fundamental  prophetic  oracle,  support  and 
inspiration  of  so  many  daring  utterances  in  the  future, 
"  Hath  the  Lord  as  great  delight  in  burnt-offerings,  ...  as  in 
obeying  the  voice  of  the  Lord?  Behold,  to  obey  is  better 
than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams."  David 
was  brought  up  in  the  school  of  Samuel,  and  imbibed  no 
little  of  his  spirit.  Often,  at  the  critical  moments  of  his 
life,  we  catch  sayings  which  utter  the  pure,  bold,  spiritual 
insight  of  his  master.  Especially,  if  we  are  to  attribute  to 
him  the  authorship  of  Psalm  li.,  and  there  seems  no  reason 
to  do  otherwise,  he  makes  his  deep  repentance  the  occasion 
for  repeating  Samuel's  estimate  of  the  comparative  value  of 
material  and  spiritual  offerings :  "  Thou  delightest  not  in 
sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it ;  Thou  hast  no  pleasure  in 
burnt-offering.  The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit : 
a  broken  and  contrite  heart,  O  God,  wilt  Thou  not  despise." 
Words  like  these  are  as  clearly  the  voices  of  a  spiritual 
faith  as  were  Wesley's  hymns  in  our  fathers'  time,  or  Keble's 
in  our  own.  But  that  age  of  faith  passed  away  too  soon. 
The  extending  commerce  and  increasing  luxury  of  the  age 
of  Solomon  drew  closer  the  ties  of  interest  and  influence 
which  bound  the  Israelites  to  their  Phoenician  neighbours. 


THE    HEBREW   APOSTASY.  211 

If  Hiram,  on  the  one  side,  gave  cedars  and  craftsmen  for  the 
Temple,  and  ships  and  sailors  for  the  fleet  of  Ezion-geber, 
Solomon,  on  the  other,  set  the  fatal  example  of  imitating  the 
idolatry  and  sensuality  of  Phoenicia.  This  example  was 
eagerly  followed  by  the  succeeding  kings  of  Israel  and 
Judah,  and  by  a  people  who  repeated  only  too  willingly  the 
pleasant  vices  of  their  monarchs. 

The  rude  and  simple  peasantry  of  Israel  were  not  altogether 
without  excuse ;  for  the  splendid  vices  of  the  Canaanites  had 
the  same  attraction  for  them  as  had  those  of  degenerate  Rome 
for  our  barbarian  forefathers.  They  had,  we  know,  adopted 
the  language  of  the  people  whom  they  had  conquered ;  for 
Hebrew,  instead  of  being,  as  some  of  our  forefathers  thought, 
the  original  language  of  man,  was  in  truth  the  language  of 
the  vanquished  Canaanites.  Was  it  strange,  then,  that  the 
simple-minded  Jews  should  have  been  strongly  attracted  by 
the  superior  civilization  of  the  people  whose  language  they 
had  learnt  to  speak  ?  Phoenicia  was  the  England  of  the 
pre-classical  ages.  Its  people  had  all  that  largeness  of  mind 
which  comes  from  acquaintance  as  well  with  many  lands 
and  races  as  with  various  modes  of  life  and  forms  of  faith. 
While  Athens  was  yet  a  little  collection  of  fishing  huts,  the 
leaders  of  Tyrian  thought  had  developed  a  form  of  Pan- 
theistic philosophy,  and  the  wealthy  merchants  of  the 
queen  of  the  sea  had  filled  her  with  luxuries  and  crowned 
her  with  palaces.  To  the  Tyrian  thinker  the  religion  of 
his  simple  Semitic  neighbours  would  appear  gloomy, 
morose,  and  fanatical,  even  as  their  form  of  life  was  rude 
and  unrefined.  No  doubt  he  looked  down  upon  them  with 
the  same  kind  of  good-natured  contempt  with  which  the 
Salvation  Army  is  regarded  to-day  by  our  leaders  of  scientific 
opinion.  And  the  Israelite  who  carried  his  honey  and 
corn  to  Phoenician  markets,  an4  saw  the  beauty  and  grandeur 


212  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

of  the  mighty  city,  would  feel  small  in  his  own  eyes  and 
turn  away  abashed  when  he  heard  the  utterance  of  a  wisdom 
which  seemed  to  be  above  him,  or  the  report  of  countries 
as  wonderful  for  the  strangeness  of  their  habits  as  for  the 
value  of  their  productions.  Must  not  the  owners  of  this 
vast  wealth,  of  these  great  palaces,  of  this  profound  culture, 
know  more  about  the  gods  than  he  did  ?  Could  he  believe 
that  the  religion  of  such  a  people  was  nothing  better  than  a 
base  and  childish  superstition  ?  Were  not  such  a  conclusion 
as  arrogant  and  uncharitable  as  it  was  palpably  foolish? 
And  if  so,  might  he  not  with  advantage  learn  from  those 
who  were  so  much  wiser  than  himself,  and  combine  some- 
thing of  their  stately  worship  with  his  own  simpler  faith 
and  sterner  morality?  Inclination  powerfully  supported 
these  suggestions  of  a  timid  inexperience.  The  first 
Israelite  settlers  in  Palestine  had  largely  married  with  the 
women  of  the  Canaanites,  and  the  warm  Phoenician  blood 
which  ran  in  the  veins  of  their  descendants  took  kindly  to 
the  splendid  spectacles,  and  even  to  the  boisterous  revelry 
and  sensual  licence,  of  the  Phoenician  worship. 

And  so,  as  commercial  and  political  relations  drew 
Israelite  and  Phoenician  into  closer  and  more  frequent  inter- 
course, the  insidious  idolatry,  the  splendid  rites,  and  the 
demoralizing  vices  of  the  latter,  crept  into  the  social  and 
religious  life  of  the  former ;  until  at  length,  in  the  reign  of 
Ahab,  and  under  the  impulse  of  Jezebel,  herself  a  Phoenician 
princess,  the  worship  of  Baal  became  the  state  religion, 
and  all  but  supplanted  the  ancient  faith  of  the  land.  Nor 
did  the  Israelites  ever  shake  off  this  demoralizing  Phoenician 
influence.  For  in  spite  of  the  mighty  struggle  of  Elijah 
and  the  remorseless  massacre  of  Jehu,  we  learn  equally 
from  the  records  of  the  Israelite  kings  and  the  writings 
gf  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century  before  Christ,  that 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  213 

Phoenician  idolatry,    sensuality,   and   oppression   degraded 
the  lives  of  the  rich  and  embittered  those  of  the  poor. 

At  length,  however,  in  the  reigns  of  Ahaz  and  Hezekiah, 
there  came  a  decided  turn  of  the  tide.  The  eighth  century 
before  Christ  was  religiously  the  greatest  century  in  post- 
Mosaic  history.  It  is  the  century  of  the  great  prophetic 
reformation,  of  the  mightiest  prophetic  effort,  and  of  the 
grandest  prophetic  utterances  with  which  the  Bible  makes 
us  acquainted.  Here  it  is  (in  the  prophecies  of  Amos, 
Hpsea,  Isaiah,  and  Micah)  that  the  modern  critic  finds  his 
first  certain  standing-ground.  And  hence  it  is  that  he  can 
throw  the  light  of  scientific  truth  backward  and  forward, 
through  all  the  centuries  which  preceded  and  followed.  It 
is  upon  this  century,  and  its  glorious  outburst  of  religious 
light,  that  attention  will  be  more  and  more  concentrated  in 
the  time  to  come.  And  it  is  precisely  in  this  century  that 
we  find,  as  we  should  expect,  the  loftiest  spiritual  utterances 
on  the  meaning  and  place  of  sacrifice. 

We  learn  from  the  historical  and  prophetic  books,  that 
not  only  were  obelisks  erected  to  Baal,  the  sun-god,  and 
asherim  or  phallic  poles  to  Ashtoreth,  but  also  that  altars 
were  everywhere  raised  to  Baal  upon  the  high  places.  On 
these  altars  the  Israelites  offered  incense  and  burnt-sacrifices, 
many  of  these  latter  consisting  of  human  victims.  The 
offering  of  human  sacrifices  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been 
specially  identified  with  Canaanite  worship.  We  are  told 
that  when  Carthage  was  besieged  by  Agathocles  the  citizens 
offered  as  burnt-sacrifices  two  hundred  boys  of  the  highest 
aristocracy;  and  subsequently,  when  they  had  obtained  a 
victory,  sacrificed  the  most  beautiful  of  their  captives  in  like 
manner.  From  the  Phoenicians  the  Israelites  learnt  the  same 
barbarous  practice.  When  Manasseh  had  stamped  out  the 
great  prophetic  reformation  in  blood,  he  reared  up  altars. 


214  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

we  are  told,  for  Baal,  and  made  an  Asherah  in  the  house  of 
God,  and  made  his  son  to  pass  through  the  fire.  In  the 
general  summary,  again,  which  is  given  of  past  abominations 
in  the  accounts  of  Josiah's  reform,  it  is  said  that  the  king 
defiled  Tophet,  "  that  no  man  might  make  his  son  or  his 
daughter  to  pass  through  the  fire  to  Moloch."  And,  referring 
to  the  same  evil  days,  Jeremiah  declares  that  the  people  of 
Jerusalem  *' built  high  places  to  Baal,  to  burn  their  sons 
with  fire,  for  burnt-offerings  to  Baal." 

Now,  as  we  saw  in  the  last  lecture,  the  offering  of  human 
sacrifices  marks  a  special  stage  in  the  development  of  the 
sacrificial  idea.  It  marks  the  crisis  when,  being  no  longer 
able  to  believe  that  animals  could  share  the  common  life  of 
the  god  and  his  worshipper,  men  felt  themselves  constrained 
to  obtain  the  blood  which  carried  that  life  by  the  sacrifice 
of  a  human  being.  But  however  the  preciousness  of  the 
offered  hfe  was  thus  enhanced,  the  thought  still  was  that  the 
blood  really  carried  the  life ;  that  the  communion  between 
the  god  and  his  worshipper  was  merely  a  physical  communion. 
It  was  this  thought  accordingly  which  prevailed  in  Israel 
when  the  great  prophetic  movement  commenced.  The 
half-paganized  masses  of  the  people,  especially  in  the  country 
districts,  looked  upon  sacrifice,  whether  human  or  animal, 
as  a  kind  of  magic  spiritual  prophylactic,  which  in  some 
unknown  way  purified  the  soul  by  its  mere  offering  and 
outward  application.  When  the  rite  was  duly  performed 
the  result  followed  :  sins  were  covered,  the  god  was  pro- 
pitiated, heaven  and  earth  were  brought  into  amicable 
fellowship.  That  men  lived  in  impurity,  that  there  were 
Sodomites,  and  women  weaving  hangings  for  the  shameless 
Asherah  in  the  very  house  of  God ;  that  they  feasted  to 
gluttony,  filled  Jerusalem  with  the  blood  of  the  innocent, 
and  ground  the  faces  of  the  poor,  all  this  was  nothing ; 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  215 

or,  at  least,  nothing  but  what  could  be  covered  and  atoned 
for  by  due  observance  of  the  sacrificial  requirements. 

But  when  night  is  darkest  morn  is  nearest ;  and  so  the 
Church  of  the  eighth  century  before  Christ  found  it.  For, 
suddenly,  into  the  darkness  of  this  vicious  and  idolatrous 
century  there  broke  the  sunrise  of  the  brightest  day 
with  which  the  Jewish  Church  was  ever  blessed.  With 
Isaiah  for  its  voice  and  Hezekiah  for  its  arm,  this  great 
religious  revival  and  advance  changed  for  the  time  the 
whole  aspect  of  Jewish  life.  In  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy 
it  simplified  and  spiritualized  the  law,  forbidding  those  local 
sacrifices  and  village  festivals  which  had  been  so  deeply 
corrupted  by  Phoenician  influence,  and  concentrating  the 
whole  ceremonial  service  of  the  country  at  Jerusalem, 
where  it  could  be  watched  and  directed  by  spiritually- 
minded  men.  And  not  only  was  the  practice  of  sacrifice 
thus  alteied  and  purified,  but  its  idea  also  was  elevated  and 
ennobled  in  the  prophetic  oracles.  In  itself  the  mere  act 
of  sacrifice,  the  mere  slaughter  of  beasts  and  sprinkling  of 
their  blood,  was  declared  to  be  useless,  and  even,  when 
unaccompanied  by  the  proper  moral  dispositions,  unpleasing 
to  God.  Bolder  words,  more  startling  words,  were  never 
uttered  upon  earth  than  those  of  Isaiah  to  the  decent  rite- 
loving  sinners  of  his  own  generation.  "  To  what  purpose 
is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices  to  Me  ?  saith  the  Lord  : 
I  am  full  of  the  burnt-offerings  of  rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed 
beasts  ;  and  I  delight  not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks,  or  of  lambs, 
or  of  he-goats.  .  .  .  Wash  you,  make  you  clean  ;  put  away 
the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before  Mine  eyes ;  cease  to  do 
evil ;  learn  to  do  well ;  seek  judgment,  relieve  the  oppressed, 
judge  the  fiitherless,  plead  for  the  widow."  Nor  were  such 
words  of  fire  the  utterance  of  a  solitary  voice  in  that  glorious 
century.     It   is   from   Hosea,  the  elder    contemporary    of 


2l6  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Isaiah,  that  our  Lord  quotes  the  memorable  oracle  which  He 
commended  to  the  attention  of  the  hypocritical  Pharisees  : 
"  I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice."  Micah,  again,  the 
younger  contemporary  of  the  same  great  prophet,  presents 
God's  demand,  in  the  form  of  question  and  answer  between 
Balaam  and  Balak :  "  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the 
Lord  ?  "  runs  the  question  of  the  king  of  Moab.  "  Shall  I 
come  before  Him  with  burnt-offerings,  with  calves  of  a 
year  old?  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with  thousands  of 
rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ?  shall  I  give  my 
firstborn  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the 
sin  of  my  soul  ?  "  Can  I  win  the  Divine  help  or  favour  by 
any  number,  or  any  preciousness,  of  animal  or  human 
victims  ?  No,  is  the  reply  put  into  the  mouth  of  Balaam  : 
"  He  hath  shewed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good  ;  and  what  doth 
the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?  " 

You  will  see  that  the  effect  of  this  w^onderful  teaching 
was  to  set  the  whole  value  of  sacrifice  in  the  spiritual  dis 
position  with  which  it  was  ofi'ered.  Sacrifice  represented 
spiritual  self-surrender  to  God  :  the  abandonment  of  all 
selfish  desires,  and  a  willing  submission  to  God's  will  of 
love.  If  the  offerer  came  in  this  temper,  then  would 
sacrifice  become  the  actual  vehicle  of  the  Divine  blessing ; 
but  if  it  were  presented  by  those  who  had  love  for  neither 
God  nor  man,  who  in  fact  desired  God  to  condone  the 
absence  of  such  a  feeling  for  the  sake  of  the  sacrifice,  then 
the  offering  became  hateful,  and  a  mere  instrument  of  sin. 

If  only  Israel  could  have  stood  fast  on  this  lofty  height 
of  religious  truth,  how  different  had  been  its  after  develop- 
ment, and  its  ultimate  reception  of  the  Lord  of  the  prophets  ! 
But,  alas  !  those  mighty  servants  of  God  were  before  their 
time,  and,  as  soon  as  Hezekiah  died,  the  mass  of  the  people. 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  21  7 

led  by  Manasseh,  and  disgusted  with  the  loss  of  their  merry 
and  licentious  festivals,  broke  out  into  open  revolt  against 
the  moral  severity  of  the  Reformers.  So  violent,  indeed, 
was  the  reaction  and  so  furious  were  the  passions  which  a 
premature  reform  had  excited,  that  not  only  were  the  great 
leaders  put  to  death  (Isaiah,  according  to  Jewish  tradition, 
being  sawn  asunder),  but  we  read  that  "  Manasseh  shed 
innocent  blood  very  much,  until  he  had  filled  Jerusalem 
from  one  end  to  another."  All  the  hopes  of  good  men  for 
the  renewal  of  the  national  life  were  thus  quenched  in  a 
bloody  persecution.  For,  in  spite  of  the  ineffectual  effort 
of  Josiah,  the  old  heathenish  habits  and  feelings  had  been 
so  deeply  rooted  in  Israel  during  the  long  reign  of  Manasseh 
that  no  permanent  change  was  effected  until  the  people  had 
passed  through  the  fierce  furnace  of  captivity. 

Even  after  the  Restoration,  the  great  days  of  Isaiah  were 
never  to  return.  For  so  great  a  horror  did  the  returned 
exiles  feel  of  every  form  of  Gentile  culture,  that  for  the 
protection,  as  they  thought,  of  the  covenant  life,  they  deter- 
mined to  know  no  study  but  that  of  the  sacred  books,  and 
no  life  but  that  which  was  literally  prescribed  therein.  The 
large  spirit  of  prophecy,  the  eagle  vision  of  the  free  son  of 
God,  was  known  in  Israel  no  more.  Instead  of  the  prophet 
these  timid  children  of  the  exile  took  for  their  teacher  the 
scribe,  the  slavish  and  laborious  student  of  the  letter  of 
the  law,  the  man  whose  delight  it  was  to  multiply  ritual 
distinctions,  and  to  bind  fast  the  life  of  God's  people  in  the 
fetters  of  a  frivolous  ceremonialism. 

What  enlightened  views  of  sacrifice  were  to  be  expected 
from  teachers  like  these,  to  whom  the  letter  was  everything, 
and  whose  sole  anxiety  was,  not  that  the  soul  should  fill  its 
act  with  meaning,  but  that  the  act  itself  should  be  accurately 
performed?      So    things   continued   till   the   days    of  our 


2l8  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

Lord,  and  we  have,  in  the  works  of  His  contemporary  Philo, 
a  singular  and  very  interesting  illustration  of  the  difficulty 
which  was  felt,  even  by  the  freest  and  largest  minds,  in 
liberating  themselves  from  popular  ritualistic  prejudices. 

"  Since  a  soul,"  he  says,  "  is  spoken  of  in  two  senses,  the 
whole  soul,  and  the  ruling  part  of  it,  which,  to  speak  truly, 
is  the  soul  of  the  soul,  it  seemed  to  the  legislator  (Moses) 
that  the  essence  of  the  soul  is  double ;  blood  of  the  whole, 
and  the  Divine  spirit  of  the  ruling  part."  How  could  a 
student  of  Plato,  we  are  tempted  to  ask,  describe  the  blood 
as  the  essence  of  the  whole  soul  ?  Because,  I  answer,  he 
was  trying  to  combine  the  Jewish  literalism  of  his  own  time 
with  Platonic  spiritualism ;  and  so,  as  he  had  not  courage 
to  break  utterly  with  the  formalism  of  his  own  people,  and 
to  proclaim  boldly  that  the  blood  only  represented  the  life 
which  it  could  not  contain,  he  was  obliged  to  tie  the  Jewish 
and  Platonic  conceptions  together  by  the  external  bond  of 
a  dual  theory.  Blood  was,  with  him,  the  essence  of  the 
whole  soul,  because  the  law  seemed  to  say  so;  but  no 
doubt  there  was  a  soul  of  the  soul,  an  inner  spiritual  thing 
which,  as  the  Platonic  system  suggested,  might  have  the 
Divine  Spirit  for  its  essence. 

This  difficulty  of  Philo,  and  the  clumsy  and  wholly  arti- 
ficial way  in  which  he  tries  to  extricate  himself  from  it,  is 
a  good  measure  of  the  difficulty  which  his  less  enlightened 
countrymen  and  fellow-citizens  must  have  felt  when  called 
upon,  by  the  necessities  of  their  position  as  excommunicated 
Jews,  to  surrender  the  right  of  partaking  in  the  sacrificial 
worship  of  the  Temple.  They  could  not  shake  off  the 
feeling  that  the  sacrifice  of  a  beast  had  some  real  mysterious 
efficacy ;  that  when  God  had  received  the  blood  sprinkled 
on  His  altar,  or  before  His  mercy-throne.  His  mind  was 
altered   towards   the   worshipper.     And   how,  then,   could 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  219 

believing  in  Christ  alter  that  fact,  if  it  were  a  fact?  If 
blood  covered  sin,  and  made  God  propitious,  made  it  safe 
for  man  to  approach  God,  and  possible  for  God  to  pardon 
man,  was  not  that  equally  true  for  Christian  and  Jew ;  and 
was  it  not  certain  that  if  a  Christian  had  to  give  up  offering 
sacrifice  he  lost  an  advantage  which  the  Jew  retained  ? 

It  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  believe  now-a-days  that  any 
calling  themselves  Christians  could  have  so  felt  and'thought ; 
and  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  a  careful  perusal  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  will  show  that  it  was  written  to  those  who 
were  thoroughly  possessed  and  terrified  by  such  fears.  That 
is  why  the  author  of  the  Epistle  has  to  seek  his  arguments 
(not  always  to  us  convincing  ones)  in  the  pages  of  the  Old 
Testament.  This  was  the  only  revealed  authority  which 
was  likely  to  be  accepted  by  the  Christian  Jews  to  whom 
he  wrote.  If,  then,  he  is  to  prove  to  their  satisfaction  that 
Jesus  was  superior  to  the  angels,  to  Moses,  to  Aaron,  and 
to  the  High  Priests  who  succeeded  Aaron  ;  if  he  is  to 
convince  his  readers  that  Jesus  has  offered  a  better  sacrifice 
than  any  prescribed  by  the  law,  a  sacrifice  which  has  no 
need  to  be  supplemented  by  the  blood  of  goats  and  calves, 
and  no  need  to  be  repeated,  he  must  do  this  on  the  authority 
of  that  very  Word  of  God  which  had  defined  the  offices 
and  prescribed  the  sacrifices.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  very 
difficult  task. 

How  much  easier  it  had  been,  we  think,  to  say  at  once. 
Matter  is  nothing,  spirit  is  everything :  sacrifice  means  self- 
surrender,  the  blood  means  the  life  given  up  to  God ;  the 
Priesthood  standing  between  God  and  man  simply  represents 
the  fact  that  since,  in  the  broken  and  perverted  condition  of 
the  human  will,  none  of  us  can  comply  with  God's  demands, 
it  was  necessary  that  such  compliance  should  be  offered  for 
us  by  the  Son  of  God,  that  so,  by  spiritual  union  with  Him, 


2  20  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

we  might  gain  the  power  to  offer  an  acceptable  obedience. 
Seen  in  the  Hght  of  our  Lord's  teaching  these  seem  to  us 
self-evident  truths,  and  they  are  certainly  not  made  more 
credible  to  us  because  they  were  more  or  less  clearly  fore- 
shadowed in  the  sacrificial  system  of  the  law.  It  was  far 
otherwise,  however,  with  those  for  whom  ApoUos  wrote.  To 
them  the  law  was  a  Divine  revelation,  and  if  they  were  to 
be  persuaded  to  abandon  the  Levitical  sacrifices,  in  must  be 
on  the  authority  of  the  law  itself. 

It  is  interesting,  therefore,  to  notice  how,  in  the  author's 
summary  respecting  sacrifice,  he  supports  himself  on  those 
very  oracles  of  the  Old  Testament  which  speak  the  language 
of  Isaiah.  We  might,  perhaps,  have  expected  the  quotation 
here  of  some  of  those  passages  from  the  prophets  which 
we  have  reviewed.  But  for  some  reason  (it  might  be  with 
reference  to  the  knowledge  of  his  readers),  twenty-three 
out  of  the  twenty-nine  passages  quoted  in  this  EpistlQ  are 
from  the  Pentateuch  or  the  Psalms,  the  fundamental  law 
and  the  book  of  common  devotion.  More  striking  still  is 
it  that  every  primary  passage  which  is  cited  to  illustrate  the 
work  of  Christ  is  taken  from  the  Psalms.  We  find,  there- 
fore, as  we  might  expect,  that  when  our  author  proceeds  to 
declare  the  true  nature  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  he  bases 
his  exposition  upon  the  words  of  a  psalm. 

What  may  be  the  age,  or  who  may  be  the  author,  of 
Psalm  xl.  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Ewald  thinks  that  the 
reference  to  the  roll  of  the  book  points  to  the  time  of 
Josiah's  reformation,  and  Cheyne  agrees  with  him.  But  it 
is  impossible,  as  Perowne  says,  to  be  certain.  One  thing, 
however,  seems  to  me  to  be  pretty  evident,  that  its  author 
belonged  either  to  the  school  of  Samuel  or  to  that  of 
Isaiah;  that  he  is  to  be  sought  either  among  the  sacred 
poets   of  whom   David  was    the    central  figure,  or  in   the 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  221 

circle  of  those  prophets  who  felt  the  mighty  impulse  of  the 
reformation  of  Hezekiah. 

There  seems  to  be  no  other  period  of  Israelitish  history 
from  which  such  words  could  have  come.  The  quotation 
from  the  Psalmist  is  introduced  by  the  positive  statement, 
"  It  is  impossible  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  should 
take  away  sin."  What  can  blood,  a  material  substance, 
have  to  do  v/ith  sins,  the  acts  of  a  spirit?  Blood  may, 
indeed,  avail  as  the  ceremonial  means  of  removing  a  cere- 
monial defilement,  but  how  can  any  blood,  and  much 
less  that  of  a  creature  which  can  have  neither  will  nor 
purpose  in  its  death,  cleanse  the  conscience  from  dead 
works  ?  A  sacrifice  which  can  avail  for  us  must  be  the 
sacrifice  of  a  will  like  our  own,  and  yet  capable  of  a  sub- 
mission to  God  more  perfect  than  any  which  we  can  offer. 
"Wherefore,"  says  our  author,  adopting  that  Messianic 
interpretation  of  Psalm  xl.,  which  his  readers  would 
readily  admit,  "when  he  cometh  into  the  world,  He 
saith.  Sacrifice  and  offering  Thou  wouldest  not,  but  a  body 
didst  Thou  prepare  Me  [or,  as  it  is  in  the  Hebrew,  '  open 
ears  didst  Thou  make  Me  '].  In  whole  burnt-offerings  and 
sacrifices  for  sin  Thou  hadst  no  pleasure.  Then  said  I,  Lo, 
I  come,  in  the  roll  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  Me,  to  do 
Thy  will,  O  God." 

Here  there  is  a  direct  comparison  between  the  sacrifices 
of  the  law  and  Christ's  spiritual  sacrifice  of  perfect  obedience; 
and  our  author  concludes,  "  He  taketh  away  the  first  (sacri- 
fice), that  he  may  establish  the  second  (obedience)."  The 
first  was  a  legal  shadow,  the  second  is  its  spiritual  substance; 
the  first  was  the  typical  prediction,  the  second  is  the  eternal 
fulfilment.  The  common  element  in  the  two  representa- 
tions is  manifestly  the  surrender  of  a  sacred  life  to  God. 
Of  this  the  legal  sacrifice  was  but   the  figure  and   fore 


222  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

shadowing,  while  the  voluntary  and  complete  self-surrender 
of  the  Son  of  God,  in  life  and  in  death,  to  His  Father's 
will,  was  the  perfect  realization.  Thus  Jesus  Christ  was 
made  a  High  Priest,  "  not  after  the  law  of  a  carnal  com- 
mandment, but  after  the  power  of  an  endless  life."  And  He 
offered  His  life  to  God,  not  merely  in  obedience  to  a  positive 
ceremonial  precept,  "but  through  an  eternal  spirit,"  through 
the  free  loving  choice  of  a  will  whose  determination  has 
eternal  validity  and  value,  because  on  the  one  hand  it  is  that 
of  a  Divine-human  Person,  and  on  the  other  has  been  fixed 
and  stamped  for  ever  with  the  seal  of  a  redeeming  death. 

Here,  then,  according  to  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  is  the  eternal  reality,  of  which  all  the  legal 
sacrifices  were  but  types.  Here  we  are  to  discover  the 
spiritual  efficacy  of  that  sacrifice  which  at  once  opened  for 
us  free  access  to  God  and  made  us  fit  to  avail  ourselves  of 
that  access.  And  standing  at  this  lofty  point  of  view  we 
are  to  look  abroad  upon  all  the  sacrificial  language  of 
prophets  and  apostles,  and  find  its  true  interpretation. 

Are  we  told  that  Christ  "made  peace  by  the  blood  of 
His  Cross,"  we  know  that  this  means,  by  the  final  sur- 
render of  His  perfect  life  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the 
Father.  Do  we  read,  again,  that  "  He  died  for  our  sins," 
we  learn  hence  that  this  is  because  His  death  had  a  twofold 
office  in  preparing  our  deliverance  :  firstly,  it  completed  and 
crowned  His  perfect  self-surrender  to  the  will  of  the  Father; 
and  secondly,  it  liberated  the  spirit  over  which  it  seemed 
to  triumph,  opening  the  way  into  that  glorified  state  in 
which  it  should  gain  higher  powers,  and,  above  all,  greater 
viability,  greater  communicableness,  according  to  His  own 
great  word :  "  It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away,  for  if 
I  go  not  away  the  Comforter  will  not  come  to  you ; "  and 
again:  "  I  will  not  leave  you  comfortless,  I  will  come  to  you;'* 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  223 

and  yet  again  :  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  all  the  days,  even  to  the 
end  of  the  age."  Do  we  read,  once  more,  "  We  are  justified 
by  faith,"  we  know,  as  in  former  cases,  that  this  teaches  us 
the  spiritual  means  by  w^hich  we  can  enter  into  communion 
with  the  life  of  Christ,  sharing  its  will  of  love,  and  gaining 
in  germ  and  potency  that  righteousness  which  is  imputed 
to  us,  because  in  Christ  we  have  that  which  in  its  due 
unfolding  shall  realize  before  men  what  it  already  is  before 
God.  Stand,  in  a  word,  at  the  right  point  of  view;  recognise 
clearly  the  fact  that  it  was  a  new  and  perfect  human  life 
which  in  His  sacrifice  of  Himself  Christ  offered  to  God, 
which  He  bestows  upon  us  by  His  Spirit,  which  we  can  take 
and  share  by  faith  in  Him ;  and  then  everything  arbitrary 
and  unethical  falls  away  of  itself  from  our  conception  of 
Christian  truth.  Then  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  God  as  a 
vengeful  enemy  longing  for  blood,  as  a  hard  trader  counting 
up  the  tale  of  human  offences  and  requiring  from  Christ  their 
equivalent  in  suffering,  or  even  as  a  satiated  creditor  willing 
to  account  to  men  actions  which  are  not  their  own  and  a 
character  which  in  no  real  sense  belongs  to  them.  Then 
all  is  natural,  all  is  ethical,  all  is,  if  not  comprehensible,  at 
least  accordant  with  those  canons  of  conscience  which  are 
our  only  measure  and  test  of  eternal  righteousness. 

To  find,  then,  that  Christ  made  a  real  atonement  or  re- 
conciliation, by  perfecting  in  His  own  Person  a  life  which 
God  could  accept  and  man  could  share ;  to  call  this  atone- 
ment vicarious  because  it  was  made,  not  for  Christ's  own 
sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  His  helpless  and  alienated  brethren; 
to  call  it  a  propitiation  because  it  was  made  by  such  a  life 
as  was  in  all  respects  well-pleasing  to  the  Infinite  Love; 
to  hope  from  it,  again,  redemption  and  regeneration 
because  the  life  which  made  it  carried  within  itself  power 
to  deliver  man  from  sin  and  to  fill  him  with  its  own  holy 


2  24  DANGERS    OF    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE. 

impulses,  all  this  is  not  only  credible,  but  inspiring  and 
uplifting.  It  fills  the  heart  with  joy  and  peace  unspeakable. 
It  explains  all  the  past  and  illuminates  all  the  future.  In 
the  light  of  it  I  understand  the  form  and  meaning  of  those 
two  great  Sacraments  which  Christ  has  set  before  the  eyes 
of  His  disciples  as  the  two  visible  parables  of  Christian 
truth  and  vehicles  of  Christian  grace.  If  salvation  is  to  be 
found  only  in  sharing  the  life  of  Christ,  how  necessary  was 
it  to  embody  in  striking  ordinances,  which  none  could 
overlook  or  misunderstand,  firstly,  the  truth  that  each  must 
be  born  anew  into  this  life ;  and  secondly,  that  he  must  be 
continually  nourished  thereby,  through  all  the  days  of  his 
mortal  pilgrimage  !  How  necessary,  further,  that  the  ordi- 
nances which  taught  the  truth  should  convey  the  gift,  and 
offer  continually  to  our  need  what  they  exhibited  to  our  faith  ! 
For  who  amongst  us  is  there,  my  brethren,  who  does  not 
consciously  need,  for  his  daily  work  and  conflict,  "  the 
power  of  Christ's  indissoluble  life  "  ?  We  can  all,  indeed, 
approve  and  even  admire  that  life  of  absolute  self-surrender 
to  God ;  but  who  of  us  in  his  own  strength  is  able  to  attain 
to  it  ?  The  assumption  that  we  can  do  this,  that  we  have 
only  to  will  and  to  be,  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  those 
man -glorifying  schemes  which  ignore  or  deny  the  necessity 
of  Christ's  sacrifice.  To  us,  however,  the  Incarnation  of 
the  Eternal  Son  of  the  Blessed  is  the  abiding  witness  that 
our  natural  will  is  not  only  broken,  but  impotent ;  that  out  of 
its  own  natural  resources  it  is  utterly  unable  to  return  the 
answer  of  a  perfect  obedience  to  the  righteous  demands  of 
God.  We  need  more  life,  more  vital  resource  and  energy 
throughout  the  whole  breadth  of  our  being,  reinforcement 
of  our  will,  augmentation  of  the  springs  of  feeling,  new 
clearness  and  emphasis  of  moral  judgment,  oblivion  of  the 
guilty  past,^and  above  all  power  to  break  bad  habits  and 


THE    HEBREW    APOSTASY.  22  5 

Stubborn  prejudices.  We  need  all  this,  and  can  only  gain 
it,  as  we  know  full  well,  by  participation  in  a  life  larger, 
richer,  holier,  and  more  self-sacrificing  than  our  own. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  show  you  in  these  lectures  that 
it  was  the  sense  of  this  need  which  showed  itself  of  old  in 
the  rudest  forms  of  the  early  Semitic  sacrifices ;  that,  as  the 
days  went  by,  clearer  and  more  adequate  expression  was 
given  to  this  craving  of  man's  awakened  conscience  by 
such  a  change  in  the  materials,  the  form,  and  the  ceremonial 
of  sacrifice  as  should  arouse  more  powerfully  the  sense  of 
sin,  while  it  awakened  the  hope  of  a  better,  because  a  more 
ethical,  atonement.  And  now  at  last,  when  the  fulness  of 
the  time  had  come,  we  have  seen  the  Son  of  the  Blessed 
taking  our  flesh,  feeling  our  weakness,  bearing  our  sins, 
fighting  our  battles;  and  through  all  this,  through  all  the 
conflict  and  suff"ering,  even  to  death,  surrendering  utterly 
His  own  will  to  that  of  His  Heavenly  Father ;  so  creating  in 
our  nature  a  humanity  well-pleasing  to  God.  Into  that  new 
humanity  we  have  all  been  brought  by  baptism ;  of  its  love 
and  purity  and  potency  we  may  all  partake  day  by  day  in 
Holy  Communion,  in  solemn  meditation,  and  the  awful 
approaches  of  prayer.  May  God,  then,  give  us  grace,  in  this 
age  of  transition,  when  minds  are  so  unsettled  and  hearts 
are  so  deeply  troubled,  and  even  the  most  venerable  insti- 
tutions of  society  seem  trembling  to  their  base,  to  lay  hold 
on  this  Divine  Hfe  of  sacrifice,  each  for  himself,  that,  losing 
ourselves  in  Christ,  and  our  selfish  will  in  that  perfect  will 
of  love  which  He  came  to  reveal  and  fulfil,  we  may  gain  a 
sure  and  eternal  abiding-place,  "in  that  city  which  hath 
foundations,  whose  Maker  and  Builder  is  God." 


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